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Nantucket Scraps 



BEING THE EXPERIENCES OF AN OFF-ISLANDER, 

IN SEASON AND OUT OF SEASON, AMONG 

A PASSING PEOPLE 



BY 



JANE G. AUSTIN 







y!:...:a.S.Q% 



BOSTON 
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY 

1883 



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1 

Copyright, 18S2, 
By James R. Osgood and Company. 



All rights reserved. 



University Pkess : 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



TO 

FRIEND JAMES, 

SlntJ ©tf)£r jTtcnUs, 

WHOSE KINDLINESS AND COURTESY MAKE MY MEMORIES 

OF NANTUCKET BOTH JOYOUS AND 

GRATEFUL. 

BOSTON, November, 1882. 




CONTENTS. 



♦ 

?Part £ 
NANTUCKET IN SEASON. 

Scrap Page 

I. The Going to Nantucket 3 

II. The Being There 19 

III. Graveyards 34 

IV. DioNis 48 

V. The Lisbon Bell 62 

VI. Mrs. McCleve's Museum, the Wind- 
mill, AND Newtown Burying-Ground ys 

VII. Friends 96 

VIII. "Lilian" and Seven Sharks .... 107 

IX. A Squantum 128 

X. Sconset 145 

XI. Sconset in Summer 166 

XII. The Coffins 183 



yj CONTENTS. 



Part 3I£ 

NANTUCKET OUT OF SEASON. 

Scrap Page 

I. The Summer Boarder 203 

II. Real Nantucket 216 

III. The Life-Saving Station 262 

IV. Sconset from the Inside. — Whales and 

Camels 272 

V. Voyaging under Perilous Circumstances 337 



"^W" 



PART I. 



NANTUCKET IN SEASON.. 




y^ 




SCRAP I. 



THE GOING TO NANTUCKET. 




N the tip of what would be the southerly 
shoulder of the cod if the Cape of that 
name were really shaped like the na- 
tional fish, or what would be the southerly strap 
of the boot-leg if it were really shaped like 
a boot, lies the town of Falmouth, and on the 
extreme southerly tip and verge of Falmouth 
a knot of houses clusters around a pretty little 
landlocked basin of water ; and those of us ven- 
erable enough to remember the ''late unpleas- 
antness" grew up to call hamlet and basin 
Wood's Hole. The wisdom of the later days 
has corrected this nomenclature into Wood's 
Holl, and avers that the Skeleton in Armor, 
after building the windmill-castle of Newport, 
annexed this little property as a sort of port of 



4 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

entry, and called it in Scandinavian his Holl, or 
Hold. Whether his name was Wood, and there- 
fore Wood's Holl, these revivalists have not yet 
stated. When they do, we shall know as much 
as the Pickwickians finally discovered about 
their Runic inscription ; and meantime we may 
consider the whole matter relegated to the 
realm of aestheticism, and therefore not to 
be considered in the vulgar light of common- 
sense. Moreover, as the newspapers now print 
the name of this place Wood's Holl, it is at 
once removed from cavil or question. 

Wood's Holl contains several things, but the 
one of general interest is a railway station occu- 
pying the head of a wharf, — for this station is 
the terminus of seventy miles of rail annexing 
Boston to Wood's Holl ; and at this wharf arrive, 
at their own pleasure and with a large and noble 
disregard of fixed times, the steamers conveying 
persons over the thirty watery miles still interven- 
ing between Boston and Nantucket. It is with a 
secret and mysterious satisfaction that Nantucket 
always announces herself as lying just one hun- 
dred miles from Boston ; and although the pro- 
saic and anti-Oscar mind rebelliously demands 
statistics to convince it that the distance is not 



THE GOIiVG TO NANTUCKET. 5 

ninety-seven, or one hundred and four, or even 
ninety-nine and three-quarters miles, — anything 
but that mystically rounded centigrade, — no 
proof is vouchsafed ; and still Nantucket blandly 
smiles and says, — 

*' Just a hundred miles from here to Boston." 
At Wood's Holl, in this station, and upon this 
wharf, arrived in the afternoon of a very hot 
day in early July, 1881, a party of tired, hungry, 
worn, and variously irate travellers. These con- 
ditions, incident to summer travel, were in this 
case aggravated by a detention of nearly three 
hours upon the road, the southward-bound 
train having encountered the wreck of a freight 
train laden with sand. The passengers were 
invited to make their election between being 
backed to Boston and trying it again next day, 
or dismounting, walking round the WTCck, and 
waiting until a " picked-up " train could be put 
together to take them on. The passengers 
growled, but nearly unanimously cried "■ Excel- 
sior ! " and, grasping yet more firmly their bags, 
shawls, parasols, lunch-baskets, novels, papers, 
bouquets, and babies, trooped down the steps 
of the cars, and thence jumped or were lifted 
into a steep bank of red-hot sand shelving pre- 



6 .NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

cipltately into a ditch happily pretty dry. Be- 
yond the ditch lay the forest primeval, as tangly, 
damp, snaky, and uninviting as the forest pri- 
meval usually is ; and thence issued, with clang 
of shardy wings and blast of war-trumpets and 
general onset of battle, the troops of beetles, 
black flies, and mosquitoes which lie in wait in 
the forest primeval for such prey as the gods 
deliver to their stings. The aesthete is invited 
here to consider the beautiful fitness of the train 
breaking down just at the stingers' door, and 
the occult adaptation of the sting to the man 
and the man to the sting, with the added har- 
mony of the golden coreopsis growing in the 
ditch, — its flower like a sunflower, its seed like 
a bug, under which general title the American 
classes everything insectile. 

*' All things come round," says the poet, and 
the passengers were no exception, — tJiey came 
round ; and the first half found seats in the 
picked-up train, and the last did not, — or only 
that ideal seat upon the monument where Pa- 
tience works out her perfect work. Mysie was 
one of the passengers, and she was one of the 
first half; whereat she was glad, preferring even 
a hard bench in a picked-up car to the best 



THE GOING TO NANTUCKET. 7 

monument ever occupied by Patience, — '• Mysie 
and Patience not being simpatica. 

After a while, and a great while, the picked- 
up train was put in motion, probably by a hand- 
car, judging from the speed and jerky action, 
and such of the passengers as had lunch ate it, 
having left town at twelve o'clock, and conse- 
quently finding themselves quite '' off with the 
old love" of breakfast by two o'clock. Those 
who had no lunch either looked enviously at 
those who had, or looked politely out of the 
window and pretended they did not know it 
was a question of lunch, or smelled and gazed 
at the coreopses they had gathered, and said in 
every line of their hungry faces, '' This, oh this, 
is the food of the aesthetic soul ! " 

Again a while, and a great while, and the 
train arrived at Wood's Holl, and there found 
the " Island Home " puffing impatient steam 
from her funnels, and dancing up and down 
with the lively flow of the tide, evidently anx- 
ious to be off. The passengers were no less 
so, and as the luggage and freight were at that 
moment backing to Boston, there was nothing 
to delay the almost immediate satisfaction of 
this desire for a start. 



8 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

Some few of those feeble sisters to whom 
pleasuring must be a woful penance dived at 
once into the ladies' cabin and lay down upon 
the benches around its side, the heels of one 
sister to the head of the next, the chain being 
marked off by little pails set along the floor. 
Two black yet sympathetic stewardesses were 
in attendance, and, like the crocodile in *' Alice," 

" Welcomed seasick strangers in 
With gently smiling jaws." 

But as the sea was smooth and the wind 
nul, nearly everybody remained upon the deck, 
which was uncomfortably crowded until the 
boat stopped at Oak Bluffs, when about four 
fifths of the passengers disembarked. 

Mysie, who with the selfish acumen of an 
old traveller had secured one of the best seats 
upon deck before the crowd perceived there 
were more sitters than seats, laid down the *' Di- 
vina Commedia," which she had been reading, 
and, contemplating all the stream of people going 
ashore and the shore to which they were going, 
felt her mind expanded with a new idea. Dante 
does not mention it, but undoubtedly there is a 
circle in Paradise, a very big circle too, devoted 



THE GOING TO NANTUCKET. 9 

to the virtuous commonplace, — those who on 
earth find, if rich, the supreme joy of Hfe in 
the shops of Paris, and if not rich, herd to- 
gether in gregarious hilarity at Oak Bluffs ! 

Yes, such a Paradise must be, since these are 
worthy souls, giving the full tale of muslin and 
alpaca, cheese or sugar, toting up the ledger 
with unhesitating accuracy, and measuring the 
molasses in an honest quart; but as everything 
has two ends, one man's bliss being another's 
bale, and this one's meat the other's poison, 
and as in the divine economy almost everything 
may be usefully employed in various directions, 
why should not this paradise of the common- 
place be also the purgatory or even the inferno 
of the aesthetic? To be condemned through 
infinite ages to live in a small wooden house 
open in front, rear, and on both sides to the 
eyes, ears, and tongues of the good and happy 
grocer and his family, to never feel the sense 
of utter stillness and loneliness soothe one's 
jaded nerves, to never be able to delude one's 
self with the idea that possibly nobody ever 
sat upon this rock and looked at just this bit 
of nature before ! — tell me, O aesthete, would 
Dis be more horrible? 



10 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

Still revolving these meek and charitable fan- 
cies, Mysie was glad to hear the wheels of the 
'' Island Home " begin also to revolve, and she 
watched the shores of Martha's Vineyard, mod- 
estly veiling themselves in blue illusion, gently 
withdraw into the obscurity, until, as the sun 
entered his evening pavilion of purple and gold, 
the only visible impertinence offered by man to 
Nature was the creaking and hissing boat and 
its freight of peanut-eaters. In the lovely dusk 
of the summer evening, the shores of Nantucket 
defined themselves with a stillness and dignity 
most comforting after the clamor of Oak Bluffs. 
The town — and it is so pretty of it not to call 
itself a city — lies along the western and south- 
ern shores of a sheltered basin called the inner 
harbor, in distinction to the great outer harbor 
or roadstead, outside the sheltering arm, some 
six miles in length, stretched out from the head 
of the island, and reaching across nearly to 
another promontory about midway its length, 
called Brant Point, — thus inclosing a large sheet 
of water, whereon the timid or seasick yachtist 
may disport fearlessly in the roughest weather. 
The comparatively narrow entrance to this har- 
bor is complicated by a sand-bar, whereon many 



THE GO/A'G TO NANTUCKET. II 

gallant ships have come to grief, either fatal or 
transitory, and whereon the steamers occasion- 
ally stick for a little while if they chance to ar- 
rive at low tide, — involving a small excitement 
not charged extra in the passage-money. Guard- 
ing the most objectionable point of this sand-bar 
is a bell-buoy, whose faint note of warning, 
creeping through the fog or storm of a dark 
day, is one of the most melancholy sounds im- 
aginable, — a sort of maritime whip-poor-will ; 
and this reminds one to notice how few birds 
inhabit Nantucket, they having probably gone 
off with the trees which once covered the island, 
and are now extinct. The inhabitants, however, 
aver that there were more birds during the last 
summer than for many previous years ; and this 
may be because vegetation is also on the in- 
crease, the moors becoming more floral year by 
year. As for trees, they do not yet thrive : some 
public-spirited individuals have tried to replace 
the indigenous growth with pitchpine and other 
varieties of evergreens ; but, like the trees in 
Amphion's neighbor's garden, — 

" Though fed with careful dirt, 
The poor things look unhappy." 

This is a digression ; and it is well to warn the 



12 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 



reader in the beginning that this is to be a book 
of digressions, following the order of events in 
Mysie's sojourn at Nantucket, — that order be- 
ing of the order of flight pursued by the dragon- 
flies above a pool, who in the lazy summer 
noons give the only touch of motion to the 
landscape by their frantic, zigzag darting hither 
and yon, yet never reach any point beyond the 
sleepy little pool Vvhich smiles to itself at the 
busy idlers above. 

The steamer, hugging the shore, which all 
around Nantucket shelves steeply to the sub- 
aqueous depths, glides around Brant Point, al- 
lowing the passengers to sun themselves in the 
eyes of the Bug-light keeper, — who might by a 
httle exertion shake hands with the pilot, — and 
rounds up to the wharf built or elongated for 
her accommodation. And here let the philo- 
sophic tourist pause to make a study of the 
wharves of Nantucket, remembering that the 
wharves of a maritime place, like the front-door 
of a house, the hat of a man, the index of a book, 
are infallible telltales of the prosperity or inter- 
ests beyond. But please to observe that '* in- 
terests" is not identical with interest here, for the 
new smxUg pier, still smelling of cement, and v.ith 



THE GOING TO NANTUCKET. 13 

offensively square and unworn piles, and smart 
black chains innocent of rust or barnacle, is not 
nearly as interesting as the creaking old wooden 
wharf, gapped all around like an old man's teeth, 
and with half its boarding gone or loose, so that 
one feels, with a delicious thrill, that to stray 
down here on a dark night might end the gen- 
teel comedy of life with a bit of tragedy. The 
gray old wharves of Newburyport, of Salem, of 
Plymouth, of the melancholy Southern ports, of 
many another quaint bygone place are dear to 
some of us, — dear as nothing of to-day could 
possibly be ; but probably, in the calm light of 
reason, the wharves of Jersey City and Oak Bluffs 
are more indicative of commercial prosperity and 
the presence of the almighty dollar. Some of 
us love the dust of centuries, some of us love 
the almighty dollar; and as only twenty miles 
of water lie between Nantucket and Oak Bluffs, 
we may all be satisfied almost simultaneously. 

On the especial evening alluded to, the "Island 
Home " rounded up to the restored yet venera- 
ble wharf assigned her, and after less delay than 
usual, ov/ing to the absence of luggage, ran out 
her gang-plank, and allowed her passengers to 
land. J\lysie tucked the *' Inferno " under her 



14 . NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

arm, and landed among the rest, looking about 
her with the slightly piqued interest attaching 
to the arrival in an absolutely new locality, re- 
ported to have features of novelty. The first 
one appeared in the shape of a mild and man- 
nerly hack-driver, who, leaving his passenger 
the possibility of refusal, requested rather than 
demanded employment, and in a patient and 
paternal manner tried to induce her to give up 
her checks, — receiving the information that the 
baggage had not come as one receives a child's 
mistaken notions as to the revolutions of the 
earth. Mysie cut the matter short by getting 
into his carriage and looking out of the oppo- 
site window ; whereupon the fatherly hackman 
went away to look up the baggage without a 
check, and having probably learned the truth 
from some masculine intelligence, came quietly 
back, mounted his box, and drove leisurely up 
into town. The streets of Nantucket were once 
paved with cobble stones, very probably de- 
posited there, in the glacial period, by some 
drifting iceberg caught upon the bar. Naturally, 
after this considerable interval, they are now 
somewhat uneven, and at occasional intervals 
are ground into powder by ages of use ; still. 



THE GOING TO NANTUCKET. 1 5 

although this pecuharity makes driving through 
the streets a somewhat heroic process, causing 
those still in possession of their own teeth to 
congratulate themselves upon the fact, no right- 
minded person would wish to see these alluvial 
cobbles give place to any modern innovation 
whatever. One melancholy proof of the cor- 
ruption of civilization to be noted in one's first 
observations of the town of Nantucket is the 
prevalence of concrete w^alks. True, the nature 
of the sandy soil is so unstable that before their 
appearance no man could prophesy of to-mor- 
row that the sidewalk would still remain where 
he had left it at sunset; but this was the nature 
of Nantucket, and why should sinful man try to 
improve upon Nature? It is pleasing to per- 
ceive that Nature avenges herself by so shifting 
the foundations of the concrete walks that the 
surface is compelled to give way at intervals, 
leaving crevasses and archipelagoes, where little 
islets of concrete are surrounded by creeks of 
sand and debris^ reminding one pleasantly of the 
footpaths among lava deposits in lands beyond 
the seas. Besides the cobbles and the concrete, 
one is impressed, in a first study of the streets 
of Nantucket, w^ith their accidental character. 



1 6 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

They are altogether devoid of the deHberate 
mahce of the streets of a city starting out in 
hfe as a metropohs, and have a lovely flavor of 
Boston, as originally laid out by the cows of 
Mr. Blackstone and his immediate successors, in 
their rambles from Spring Lane to Cornhill, and 
round again to Milk Street, going home by way 
of Water Street, — although in those days the 
connection between Milk and Water was not as 
close as in these. This flavor of Boston topog- 
raphy is in fact foreshadowed in a sonnet printed 
in the '' Transcript " some two years since, which 
might be here appropriately quoted : — 

"BOSTON. 

" Cobwebbed with tangled streets the old town lies, — 

Streets like unravelled threads of loitering Fate, 

Who, in sweet idlesse, o'er ways intricate 

Spun carelessly a city's destinies. 

Quaint peaked roofs, with Pilgrim histories, 

Rise sharp athwart the sky : and Time's estate, — 

The darkened window-pane (through which we wait 

To catch a glimpse of far-off ghostly eyes), 

The mildewed wall, the ivy old that shrouds 

Church tower and gable high, the graveyard low, 

With dates o'ergrown, 'tween haunts of hurrying crowds, — 

These start, like phantoms from a long-ago, 

To lure the stranger at the sea-girt gate, 

As erst they lured in vision, idling Fate. 

Marie LeBaron." 



THE GOING TO NANTUCKET 1/ 

Murmuring these lines to herself, Mysie ar- 
rived at her destination, a pleasant house in 
Pearl Street, where by-and-by she fell asleep, 
lulled by the rhythm of the far-off surf upon 
South Shore. 

In closing this chapter, introductory to a cur- 
sory study of Nantucket, we may quote some 
verses from a poem in her honor, written by a 
child of the soil, and called '' My Native Isle." 
They appear in a quaint little volume entitled 
" Seaweeds from the Shores of Nantucket," — a 
collection of indigenous poems by various pens, 
but all stamped with that passionate and half- 
defiant attachment to the writers' birthplace so 
characteristic of islanders, especially when the 
island is small, bleak, and naturally unattractive : 

" Whence sprung my Native Isle ? 

" Oh, was it severed from the shore 
Of neighboring lands in days of yore 

By strong volcanic shock ? 
Hurled into the Atlantic Main 
A barren, sandy, dreary plain, 

A bit without a rock ? 

" Perchance it floated from the North, 
Issued from Zembla's regions forth 
To find a kinder sky ; 



1 8 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

Perchance it may again set sail, 
Propelled by Boreas' favoring gale, 
The torrid zone to try. 

" Hence all ye light fantastic schemes 
Teeming with fancy's flimsy dreams, 

No more my thoughts beguile ! 
It is not in your power to tell 
What tossed it up on Ocean's swell, 

Or whence my Native Isle. 

" Undecked, unlovely as thou art, 
A speck upon the world's great chart, 

Thou art our native spot ; 
And, true to nature, still we love, 
And by aflfection still we prove 

Thy faults can be forgot. 

" We know the grandest, loftiest pines 
Have left to grace more genial climes, 

Yet lovely plants here thrive ; 
The violet bland, the violet blue, 
And violet of cerulean hue 

Betoken spring 's alive. 

" Thy fatal shores and sandy shoals, 
Round which the foaming white-cap rolls. 

All hopes of safety blast ; 
The pale, affrighted sailor eyes 
The dangers that around thee rise, 
And turns away aghast. 

M. M.» 



SCRAP II. 



THE BEING THERE. 




HE first feature of Nantucket noticeable 
in the morning is the seven o'clock 
bell which noisily proclaims from the 
Unitarian steeple, or, as they call it, the *' tower," 
that Nantucket may now sit down to breakfast, 
— it being taken for granted that all properly- 
minded people are up, dressed, and well on with 
the day's work by that time. Mysie claims to 
be a properly-minded person, but she is not 
matutinal in her tastes, and had not slept well 
amid her new surroundings ; so she anathema- 
tized the seven o'clock bell with all the force of 
the feeble vocabulary permitted to her sex, but, 
still after the manner of her sex, obeyed its 
summons ; and having made such a toilet as the 
absence of all luggage except the *' Inferno" per- 
mitted, opened her window and viewed Nantucket 
by daylight. Yes, very cobbly, very concrete, 
very accidental ; but very blue as to sky, very 



20 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

odorous and verdant as to the garden belov/ her 
windows, very crisp and sparkling as to atmos- 
phere, very satisfactory in that nameless, invisible, 
but most tangible sympathetic greeting which 
some new scenes extend to one, and some others 
utterly fail of possessing or offering. To borrow 
once again a word not quite translatable, Mysie, 
looking in the eyes of Nantucket, found them 
simpatica, and went downstairs well pleased. 

At the front-door stood two charming young 
girls, fresh and blithe as the morning, and in- 
stantly suggesting the Rose and Blanche of a 
certain novel one was quite sure they never 
could have read. Framed in the doorway of an 
inner room stood the handsome hostess with 
her baby in her arms, presenting the picture 
of mother and child so sanctified to Christian 
hearts by the Mother and Child. Beyond, sat 
a lovely old lady smiling welcome to the guest, 
who felt that here indeed were gathered the ele- 
ments of a human bouquet, sweet and bright 
as the summer morning in whose radiance all 
looked their best. 

Breakfast over. Rose and Blanche, who had 
been in Nantucket before, and knew the lairs 
of some of its biggest lions, offered to show 



THE BEING THERE. 21 

them to Mysie, who gladly accepted their blithe 
guidance. 

** What would you like to see first? " inquired 
Blanche, the younger and more tireless of the 
two. " There is the museum with the sperm 
whale's jaw, and the bric-a-brac shops, and the 
wharves, and the bathing-houses, and the Uni- 
tarian bell out of a Portuguese convent, and 
the graveyards, and the mill, and Mrs. McCleve, 
and the old house on Uriah Gardner's Hill, 
and — " 

** Please ! " exclaimed Mysie, holding up her 
hands, " it is such an embarrassment of riches 
that I am overwhelmed. Let us begin where 
you left off, and go to the old house on some- 
body's hill." 

" Uriah Gardner's," replied Blanche, casting 
a glance of scrutiny at Mysie's feet. *' You 
want the very tallest shoes you have, for the 
sand is ankle-deep." 

" I should say knee-deep," said Rose, medi- 
tatively. " And I think I will take my bath, if 
you are going up there." 

** Perhaps you would rather bathe too, this 
morning," suggested Blanche to Mysie. "We 
can drive to Clean Shore for ten cents, or go 



22 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

over in the ' Dauntless ' with Captain Burdette 
for the same price." 

** Thanks," rephed Mysie, meditatively. " It 
seems to me, however, as I spent the most of 
yesterday floating over a watery grave, — noth- 
ing but a plank, you know, between me and 
eternity, — it would be an appropriate thing to 
go to see the land-graves to-day ; not Alsatian, 
but domestic." 

Blanche looked puzzled, but with a child's 
charming singleness of purpose inquired, *' Do 
you mean you want to go to the graveyard ? " 

" Yes, my dear, although not to remain ; and 
we will also go to the old house on Uriah Gard- 
ner's Hill, if it can be done in one excursion." 

*' Oh, yes, perfectly," replied the little maid, 
blithely, while Rose added, — 

'' And I will go to bathe ; for I was at the 
old house yesterday, and it is an awfully hot 
walk." 

So Mysie and her charming escort set bravely 
forth, soon leaving the concrete behind, and 
threading lanes and laney roads where old, old 
houses stood elbowing the street, or where shal- 
low depressions in the thin, tough turf showed 
where homes had been and were no more. One 



THE BEING THERE. 23 

cause of these depressing depressions is a custom 
prevalent in Nantucket at one time of moving the 
houses no longer needed in the shrunken town 
over to the mainland, — not after the manner of 
a snail, who walks about with his house on his 
back, but more as the water-fowl brings twig by 
twig the framework of her future mansion to its 
appointed site. Does the exact reader inquire, 
"Why no longer needed?" The answer is the 
history of Nantucket; and this in its way is as 
full of romantic and melancholy interest as that 
of Acadia. Looking below the surface matter of 
detail, such as oil and religion, — there being no 
oil in Acadia, and no religion in Nantucket, — 
the great revolutionizing factors of the two his- 
tories remain the same ; or, rather, all history 
is a kaleidoscope where the varying effects are 
produced by the identical dozen bits of broken 
glass. But although scraps of history may in- 
trude among the other Nantucket scraps here 
collected, it will not be of malice prepense ; so, 
turning back from the via histoj'ica, we will 
pass at once out of the end of the last street in 
Nantucket town into a Sahara of fathomless 
sand, beyond which rises a sharp bluff, breaking 
off toward the road in an acclivity, up the face 



24 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

of which crawled a path, if so it might be called, 
and toward this path Blanche resolutely took 
her way, saying, — 

*' You don't mind climbing, I hope?" 

** Oh, no ; not in a good cause. 

* They climbed the steep ascent of heaven 
Through peril, toil, and pain.' 

But I hope it was n't so sandy," gasped My- 
sie, struggling over the edge, and planting her 
feet upon the turf as firmly as might be in the 
face of a wild sea-wind hurling sand and salt 
needle-points in her face and eyes. And here 
let us note another peculiarity of Nantucket: 
there are no land-breezes, simply because there 
is not land enough to make one. The island, 
lying thirty miles out at sea, and measuring 
from three to five or six miles in width, with 
no high land, is swept from shore to shore by 
whatever breezes blow ; so that, as an invalid 
despondently remarked, to stay a summer on 
Nantucket was the same as making a sea-voy- 
age, except that you never got anywhere or had 
any variety. 

" Can you get through these bars, or shall I 
let them down?" asked Blanche, on whose fair 
cheek the sea-roses were blooming brightly. 



THE BEING THERE. 2^ 

" Was this the customary approach to the 
house when it was inhabited?" asked Mysie, 
overcoming the obstacle in a manner not neces- 
sary to specify. 

'' I dare say they had no fence in those days," 
rephed Blanche, meditatively. *' There ! is n't 
it nice?" 

Anything but nice in the nice adaptation of 
the word, for it was very much decayed and out 
of shape; but the nicest of nice, quite too alto- 
gether nice, in aesthetic jargon, for it was but 
a ghost of a house, with great holes in the roof, 
chasms in the chimney, no glass in the boarded 
windows, and all one angle so eaten away by 
the tooth of Time and the east wind that one 
might put one's finger through what had once 
been solid oak, and grasp at the mouldered 
heart of the old home. 

On the front of the great stack of chimney 
filling the centre of the building, was traced with 
bricks a symbol commonly called a horse- shoe, 
intended to avert the attacks of witchcraft : 
some archaeologists say it is the letter U (initial 
of Uriah),'but the horse-shoe theory best suits 
the spirit of the place. In Acadia a man pos- 
sessing faith enough to spend his substance and 



26 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

labor in placing a protecting symbol upon his 
house would have chosen the Cross ; but the salt 
wind sweeping Nantucket, in those early days 
when everybody believed in at least something 
beyond the end of his own nose, brought in 
only that dim phantom of superstition which 
broods over the waste of ocean, and infects the 
hearts of those who live amidst its vague soli- 
tudes ; so that Mysie — not then, but after months 
of patiently studying the soul of Nantucket — 
knew that the man who placed that horse-shoe 
upon his chimney was an unhappy man ; for he 
w^as born to believe, and Fate had placed him 
in this outpost of Puritan and Quaker nega- 
tion where the uprooting of the old faiths, like 
the uprooting of the old oaks, has left only a 
sterile waste instead of a generous new growth. 
Poor Uriah (if that was his name) ! How his 
horse-shoe makes one's heart ache by its mute 
appeal for protection to the Unknown God ; and 
how one wonders that neither then nor now has 
any Paul been sent to interpret with resistless 
power the Eternal Mystery to those who smile 
at the horse-shoe, yet know not the Cross ! 

** You see that little window beside the front 
door?" asked Blanche, pointing to three panes 



THE BEING THERE. 2/ 

of glass set laterally at about seven feet from 
the ground. 

" Yes. What an odd shape and position ! " 
** That was for the women to look out and see 
if the Indians were attacking the house. Do 
you know about Molly Gardner who lived here, 
and the Indian who dropped through the roof? " 
"No; tell me all about it." And Mysie luxu- 
riously seated herself on the short worn turf, com- 
pacted by the pressure of the hundreds of feet 
(so quiet now !) which in those two centuries had 
gone in and out over that sunken door-stone ; 
and Blanche, wandering like a kitten around her, 
told the story, true perhaps, perhaps not, — for 
yet another peculiarity of Nantucket is its utter 
apathy with regard to its own legends, and the 
impossibility of verifying them. One hears a 
vague and careless story from one person ; and 
painfully seeking to amplify and establish it 
from other sources, is generally met with an in- 
dulgent smile, and '' Well, I don't know, I 'm 
sure. Maybe it is so, but I don't seem to know. 
Perhaps Grandma So-and-so would." The stu- 
dent's manifest best course in such a dilemma 
as this is eclecticism ; and if a mathematical con- 
science gives him trouble, let him reflect that 



28 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

most history, from Herodotus to Taine, has 
been constructed on the same principle. So 
Blanche's blithe voice asserts, with no perad- 
venture in its tones, — 

" There was a girl named Mary Gardner, — 
some people say Molly, but I thought the 
Quakers never used nicknames nor calico ; did 
they?" 

** Qiden sabef It was a great while ago, little 
Blanche; and times change, and Quakers with 
them." 

'' Well, I '11 call her Molly, because I hke it 
better myself. You see the Gardners were one 
of the old families, and the Coffins were an- 
other — " 

" The F. F.s of Nantucket, so to speak," sug- 
gested Mysie. 

*' Yes, though there 's a lot more of them ; 
did you ever hear the old verse? 

" ' The Rays and Russells coopers are, 
The knowing Folgers lazy ; 
A lying Coleman very rare, 
And scarce a learned Hussey. 
» The Coffins noisy, fractious, loud, 

The silent Gardners plodding ; 
The Mitchells good, the Barkers proud. 
The Macys eat the pudding.' 



THE BELVG THERE. 29 

" There is another verse, but it is so very im- 
poHte to the Pinkhams that I did n't learn it." 

'* The omission does you credit, my child. So 
this is the Libro d'Oro of Nantucket," suggested 
Mysie. '' And Molly Gardner? " 

" Molly Gardner's father wanted her to marry 
Tristram Coffin — they always call it * Trus- 
tum ' when they tell the story, but it was really 
Tristram." 

" And Molly was really Ysolde? " 

'' No, she did n't love him as Ysolde did that 
Tristram ; in fact, she loved somebody else, — 
some * off-islander,' as they call them : they used 
to say * Coofs ' in those days, and now they say 
* strangers.' Do you know they always call 
going to the mainland * going to the continent '? 
Well, Molly loved some stranger from the con- 
tinent, — maybe some fisherman from Cape Cod, 
— and she didn't want to marry Trustum at all; 
but her father and mother made her, because of 
family reasons, — though they were Friends, and 
ought n't to have cared, you know, about money, 
and land, and things; ought they?" 

" I suppose Friends were human in those 
days, and so in this case inhuman. How did 
Tristram feel ? " 



30 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

" Oh, he wanted very much to marry Molly, 
because he liked her; and finally he was going 
to sea on a long voyage, and he said if they 
would marry her to him he would go directly 
on board his ship, and leave her with her parents 
till he came home ; but he wanted to make sure 
of her, you see." 

•' What a foolish Trustum ! Well? " 

" Well, all this while Father Gardner had been 
building this house to give Molly for her wed- 
ding present; and it was all done, and they 
agreed to have the wedding in it; and then 
Molly could be the mistress, though her mother 
would stay with her while her father went to 
sea, — they all went to sea in those days, you 
know; and the rooms in this house are all 
braced at the corners with oak knees, just like 
a ship's cabin ; all their ideas came from ships 
and sea. Well, it was settled that way; and 
Trustum's ship was all ready, and the wedding 
afternoon came, and the Friends came up to 
marry them. Do you know how Friends 
marry?" 

'' They should n't marry at all." 

*'Why?" 

'' Because they should be lovers, not friends." 



THE BEING THERE. 3^ 

*' Oh, well, I mean Quakers, you know. They 
just say they want to marry, and will be good 
to each other, and all that ; and then they sign 
a paper, and all their friends who are there sign 
it too, and that is all. They don't have a minis- 
ter or anything." 

" God forgive them ! " said Mysie, fervently. 
''Well?" 

" Well, the time came for Molly to get ready, 
and Molly was not to be found anywhere, high 
nor low, in the old house or the new, or any- 
where ; and there was the greatest time looking 
for her ; and after a while they found her down 
by the shore, hiding among the rushes and tall 
grass, and her father brought her in at the back 
door, and there was her mother waiting for her; 
and of course she was awfully angry, but being a 
Friend she could n't scold, and all she said was, — 

" ' Molly Gardner, do thee go straight up- 
stairs and put on thy calico gown and striped 
petticoat, and come down and be married.' 

" Now what puzzles me is, being Quakers, 
how did she come to have a calico gown and 
striped petticoat?" 

Blanche's forget-me-not eyes, demanding re- 
ply, drove away the image of that other girl, 



32 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

pale, dishevelled, despairing, dragged from her 
poor refuge to a hateful marriage, — her des- 
perate eyes yet looking down through all these 
years from the windows of that upper chamber 
whither she was sent to deck herself for the sac- 
rifice, — and Mysie dreamily replied, — 

" 'Calico' in those days meant only the cotton 
fabrics of Calicut. It might have been dust- 
color and without figures ; and the petticoat was 
perhaps linsey-woolsey striped in dust-and-ashes 
tints. Did she do it?" 

" Yes ; she went up and dressed herself, and 
came down and was married ; and Tristram and 
all the company went away, and he sailed that 
night, and was gone three years, and then he 
came home, and they lived here. I hate to tell 
that part, but they always say she lived to be 
ninety years old, and had lots of children, and 
was a very hearty, healthy old woman," 

*' Poor thing, poor thing ! That 's the saddest 
part of the story," murmured Mysie. 

^' ' Over-live it — lower yet — be happy ! wherefore should 
I care ? ' " 

" And the Indians who lived here then got 
cross with- the white people, and one of them 



THE BEING THERE. 33 

made a hole in the roof and dropped down 
through to rob and murder the people ; and 
Molly was all alone in the house, but she got 
away, and ran down to her father's, — and there 
is the hole in the roof this minute." 

" Proof positive ! Come, dear child, let us go 
to the graveyard," said Mysie, rising. For in 
fact the graveyard seemed just then less ghostly 
than Molly Gardner's old house. 




SCRAP III. 



GRAVEYARDS. 




imaginative natures 



a certain ghoulish instinct 



N most idle and 

there is 

which leads them to frequent grave- 
yards, and find therein certain mysterious food, 
so satisfying to their appetites that if, in return- 
ing home, they are offered the good wholesome 
diet of Mrs. Jones's bonnet, or Mr. Brown's red 
nose, or the sweet thing in politics just out, they 
nibble at them as languidly as Amina at the 
rice, or perhaps are irritated into using the bod- 
kin upon Sidi Nonman's face. 

Nantucket to such a person offers extraor- 
dinary advantages ; for there are several vener- 
able graveyards wherein the oldest portions 
show neither monument nor mound, although 
the graveyard doors are metaphorically closed, 
every place being taken, and the audience wait- 
ing patiently for the trumpet-blast. Thus the 
imagination is left unusually free to spin its 



GRAVEYARDS. 35 

subtile webs over the neglected grass, resem- 
bling tufts of dead men's withered hair; the 
crawling blackberry vines, whose briers clutch 
like dead women's fingers at one's garments 
as they trail past; and the thickets of alder and 
willow clustering mysteriously around a dank 
hollow at the back of the Old North, like 
mourners who know more than they ever will 
tell of the secret buried at their feet. 

It was to the Old North that Blanche brought 
Mysie on this first morning, and showed her 
various quaint inscriptions, some of them thrill- 
ing with that mysterious pathos peculiar to 
death at sea. Prominent among these were 
three lonely graves almost lost in the riotous 
growths of vines and grasses, on one of whose 
sunken stones Mysie painfully deciphered — 

Here lyes buried 

Capt. THOMAS DELAP. 

Son of Mr. James Delap and Mrs. Mary his wife. 

He was cast a shore on Nantucket 

Dec. Y 6- ^11^ 
And perisht in y Snow storm here. 
Aged 26 years & 7 months. 

Just think a little how Mary, wife of James De- 
lap, felt when she heard of her boy perishing in 
the snowstorm on that December night. An- 



36 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

other almost identical epitaph on the neighbor- 
ing stone tells how Amos Otis, set. 19, native 
of Cape Cod, shared the shipwreck and the 
death, as now the resting-place, of his youthful 
captain. The third stone says, — 

THOMAS DAUS 

Son of Mr. Jon'^ and Mrs. Sarah Daus 

Departed this life at Sea Decem^'^ y is^^^ 1763 

in y Lat. 38 Deg. N. Long. 63 Deg. W. in y 19'*^ year of 

his age. 

And whether Daus means Davis or Daws is a 
question for the Recording Angel to answer, 
since nobody else seems to know. 

These three graves had a peculiar fascination 
for Mysie ; and many a time while summer 
lasted, and again when late November keened 
shrilly above the gray stones and prostrate herb- 
age, she sat beside them wondering whether, 
when the sea gives up its own, Thomas Daus 
will feel any ownership in this his memorial 
stone, and why Amos Otis was not carried back 
to Cape Cod, and what were the incidents of 
that shipwreck and the snow-storm so memor- 
able as to need no further description than *' y 
Snow storm." 

** See my roses ! " cried little Blanche, skip- 



GRAVEYARDS, 37 

ping across Amos Otis, and presenting a great 
bunch of blossoms tinted like her own cheeks. 
" They are deeper colored and thicker petalled 
here than anywhere else." 

" They are vampires, colored and nourished 
by human lives," said Mysie, eying the roses 
askance ; at which Blanche, tinkling out her 
pretty girl-laugh, cried, — 

*' Perhaps then you won't eat the blackberries 
when they come along ! Don't you see all the 
vines? In August they are covered with great 
plump blackberries, perfectly delicious ones ; and 
you never can tell at the table, you know, whether 
they were picked in the graveyard or not." 

"You dreadful little ghoul! But both the 
roses and blackberries seem to grow principally 
in that great bare space in the middle of the 
ground. Nearly all the graves are beyond it, 
and these few are on this side of it." 

" Oh, it 's all graves. Papa found out last 
summer all about it. The first settlers didn't 
believe in grave-stones, perhaps because they 
had n't any, and could n't very well get any ; and 
perhaps because they had n't any churches or 
ministers, and did n't care much about religion, 
and so — just buried their friends, and that was 



38 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

all about it. Then the Quakers don't allow any 
stones put up ; and perhaps at first they buried 
here before they had a place of their own, and 
the bad example hurt the others. At any rate, 
all this middle space is just packed close with 
graves ; and that 's what makes all these little 
hollows where the vines grow so thick and 
strong. They 're all old Nantucketers, dead 
and gone, and forgotten." 

The roses, and the blithe young voice, and 
the sweet strong air sweeping in from seaward, 
made a gracious melody in the summer morn- 
ing; but through it sobbed, like a minor strain, 
those words, — the knell of lives so sadly hu- 
man, — ''Dead, and gone, and forgotten!" 

'* Come over and see the Gardners," pursued 
the child. *' You know this is sometimes called 
the Gardner Burying-ground, — for I believe 
they started it for themselves originally, and 
then the North Church adopted it. Then the 
Gardners were always marrying the Coffins, and 
about half the stones announce that fact, like 
this one : you see Mercy Ann was wife of Seth 
Coffin and daughter of Amariah Gardner; and 
next door is Rebecca, wife of Obed Gardner 
and daughter of Peter Coffin. Now see the 



GRAVEYARDS. 39 

long row at the back there, just soHd Gardners ; 
is n't it nice? " 

" Oh, very nice," repHed Mysie, laughing, as 
she struggled through briers and knee-deep tan- 
gled grass, and all sorts of lawless growths, to 
read the brief yet so suggestive records of lives, 
each one with its own story, — its triple story of 
a soul as it knew itself, as men knew it, as God 
knew it. A graveyard is so like an index, — -but 
the book is out of reach. Coming back from 
the Gardner corner, the friends strayed around 
among the gray old stones, painfully deciphering 
beneath lichen and mould the epitaphs, which 
Mysie after a while discovered bore one painful 
likeness, — they were eminently without faith and 
without hope : the mere wail of desolation from 
mourners feeling themselves eternally bereaved, 
or else the stoical confession of defeat. Promi- 
nent in the latter class was this of a young man : 

"When soul and body did unite 
In me my parents took deliglit 
The scene is changed the seperation made, 
And I am numbered with the dead. 
Now young and old may plainly see 
Yt youth was no defence to me, 
For deaths dread call we must obey 
And mingle with our parent clay." 



40 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

Another, of a wife aged twenty-nine : — 

" The old must die and leave the stage 
The young may die you see, 
But I was called in middle age, 
Prepare to follow me." 

Again : — 

" My years are scarcely twenty eight 
As you may plainly see ; 
Stoop down my friends, and weep for joy, 
For you must lye with me." 

Contrast these with two or three in the old 
burying-ground of Provincetown, the tip of Cape 
Cod: — 

" Depart my friends, dry up your tears 
I must lye here till Christ appears." 

And here is one reminding us of Pope Greg- 
ory's exclamation when he saw the captive Brit- 
ish children in Rome. " Angles ! " quoth he ; 
*' they should rather be called angels." 

" Two more little angles 
Gone to Heaven." 

Another from Provincetown is, — 

" Here lyes ye body of a blooming youth 
His dying expressions were goodness and truth 
His weeping friends around hearing him say 
Come my sweet Lord and take me away." 



GRAVEYARDS. 4 1 

And this, byway of consolation to a widower : 

" The great Creator wise and trew 
Has an undoubted right to reign 
He made and lent her unto you 
Till he should call for her again." 

Another widower makes his own confession 
of faith thus : — • 

"As I passed by with grief I see 
That my dear wife is taken from me 
Taken by One that had a right — 
JThank God to Heaven she took her flight." 

Provincetown can perhaps claim no superiority 
of diction or poetic afflatus, but it has that faith 
which is able to move mountains of ignorance 
and dulness. Let us not, however, be too severe 
on the lack of faith in Nantucket, for in a grave- 
yard of Newton, close to Boston, stands a stone 
bearing this heathen inscription : — 

" Beneath this stone our little boys 
Our hopes, our comforts and our jo3'S 
Down to the 'tomb they now have gone 
And left their parents here to mourn. 
Down to the grave they now have gone 
While in the days of youthful morn 
Tears from our eyes how free they flow 
Our little boys we see no more. 
Beneath the ground on which we tread 
Now they lie numbered with the dead." 



42 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

In the Newton burying-ground is also this 
epitaph : — 

'' Sweet Babe ! 
He orlanced into this world to see 
A sample of our miserie. 
He tasted of lifes bitter cup 
Refus'd to drink the potion up 
Then turn'd his little head aside 
Disgusted with the taste, and died." 

Enough of epitaphs, although there are many 
more, in each of these graveyards, following 
the school of those quoted ; and also many of 
the conventional oddities rife in the last cen- 
tury, as, — 

" Traveller pause as you pass by 
As you are now, so once was I, 
As I am now so you shall be, 
Prepare to die and follow me." 

Reminding one of Montgomery's melancholy 

lines : — 

" Once in the course of ages past 

There lived a man, and who was he } 
Reader where e'er thy lot be cast 
That man resembled thee ! " 

Over one very young married woman in the 
Gardner Burying-ground is placed, but without 
credit, rare Ben Jonson's famous and lovely 
epitaph : — 



GRAVEYARDS. 43 

" Underneath this stone doth lie 
As much beauty as could die ; 
Which in life did harbour give 
To as much virtue as doth live." 

The oldest certified grave upon the island 
stands alone upon a wind-swept hill near the 
site of the original town, then called Sherburne. 
It is said that the hill-side was once a grave- 
yard ; but the only visible proofs remaining are 
one stone with its legend quite obliterated, and 
another in tolerable preservation, stating, — 

Here lyes ye body of 

JOHN GARDNER 

Who was born in ye year 1624 and died 1706 aged 82. 

Town history states that this veteran bore the 
title of Captain; was a magistrate, and a worthy 
and honorable man. Private enterprise has 
within the year erected a rather pretentious 
monument, surrounded by an iron fence, close 
beside this grave, pointing out its antiquity and 
giving the names of several other worthies, con- 
temporaries of Captain John, and very possibly 
buried in undiscernible graves around him; but 
although highly respectable, the monument 
strikes one as a little impertinent, and the effect 
of the two gray old stones decently crumbling 



44 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

into dust on that lonely hill-side, with the sea 
— the same sea by which these men walked and 
toiled, and lived and died — whispering their 
story, and the midnight winds making moan 
over their graves, and the creeping grasses 
folding them ever closer and closer, — all 
these seem more harmonious alone, than with 
the addition of a big red-and-white and iron- 
fenced monument. 

But Nantucket is proud of the monument, and 
it does not become her guests to be hyper- 
critical. 

The most pathetic spot in Nantucket, however, 
is in the least interesting of her many burying- 
grounds ; that is, the newest and most pretentious, 
abounding in heaps of barren gravel suggestive 
of unhealed wounds, in smart new monuments 
of white marble with gilt letters, in rusty and 
broken wooden fences, in attempted drive-ways 
and gravelled paths. But quite at the back of this 
melancholy cemetery, — for it scorns the name of 
graveyard or burying-ground, — lies a level par- 
allelogram containing twenty-one graves, as close 
to each other as they can lie. They are chiefly 
the nameless crew of the ship "Newton" of Ham- 
burg, wrecked off the South Shore on Christmas 



GRAVEYARDS. 45 

Eve, 1865 ; and of all the twenty-seven men on 
board only one reached the shore alive. It snowed 
and blew furiously that night; and the sailors' 
wives and widows in Nantucket shivered by their 
firesides as they listened to the howling of the 
wind and the savage hammering of the surf on 
South Shore three miles away. They did not 
know all the horror of that night, however ; for 
some time in its darkness one poor naked crea- 
ture, cast ashore by those savage billows, crawled 
up out of their reach, and, fighting for life as 
only a strong man can fight, got to his feet and 
staggered on to find shelter and help. Naked, 
blinded by sleet and driving sand, exhausted, 
chilled, he fought on and on, falling now and 
again (for they found the scars he left on the 
cruel snow), and then up and on, until he came 
within sight of a farm-house ; saw perhaps the 
fire-light and the cheerful flicker of the lantern 
as the farmer looked that his beasts were warm 
and safe, and then he fell, and rose no more — 
in this world. 

Christmas Eve ! When and how did that soul 
going out in agony and strife keep its Christmas 
day? 

Go, you who find nothing more to interest 



4-6 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

you in this worn-out world, —7- go to South Shore 
in November, and wandering off into the desolate 
moor sit down with only the wind and the sky 
for company, and picture to yourself that Christ- 
mas Eve and that soul and body fighting for 
life ! The body was defeated, but perhaps the 
soul won a glorious victory. 

The crew of the " Newton " do not lie alone 
in their nameless graves. That same Christmas 
Eve, the schooner " Haynes " from St. Domingo 
was wrecked on the western end of the island, 
with most unnecessary loss of life ; for when 
the Humane Society's boat reached her, the 
vessel was unbroken, and the cabin warm, with 
a good fire in the stove ; but the crew had taken 
to the boat, and all perished in the furious surf: 
the boat and oars with one dead body were 
found upon the beach, and other bodies were 
afterwards recovered. All the ministers of the 
island participated in the funeral rites over these 
poor relics ; and although not one of the dead 
was known even by name to those who mourned 
him, the tie of common brotherhood, so sweet 
and dear at such a time, asserted itself; and 
many wept the cruel death, and some few prayed 
that all might still be well with those so suddenly 



GRA VE YARDS. 47 

called within the vail. And this is but one of 
numberless stories of wreck, heroic effort, noble 
lives and noble deaths whose indices are to be 
found in the graveyards of Nantucket. 




SCRAP IV. 



DIONIS. 




^Y dear, what horrible thing has hap- 
pened? " exclaimed Mysie, clinging to 
Blanche's slender arm for protection, 
and staring at one of the many angles of the 
homeward road, around which a medley of sound 
came bearing down upon them, suggesting im- 
mediate and rapid flight. But Blanche's laugh 
was reassuring, and Mysie suffered herself to be 
led onward as she received the information, — 

" Oh, that's only Billy, — Billy Clark, you know, 
— the town-crier, although I believe on the whole 
he cries on his private account and not for the 
town. Twice a day when the boat comes in he 
is down on the wharf, and before they really stop 
somebody throws him a bundle of newspapers, 
and he sets forth, reading scraps as he goes, 
and then crying the news as he understands it. 
Sometimes he makes rather droll mistakes, — 
as, for instance, when he announced, ' Great 



DIONIS. 49 

battle at Molasses Junction ! Meat auction this 
evening ! ' But I 'm sure we should do worse if 
we tried to blow a horn, and ring a bell, and 
read the newspaper, and cry the news, and walk 
like a steam-engine all at once, should n't we? " 

" Indeed we should," fervently replied Mysie. 
*' So that dreadful bray is a horn, is it? " 

" Yes ; a great big one, like what the angels on 
the steeple of that church in Boston have. You '11 
see it in a minute, and then a great bell like a 
hotel dinner-bell ; and the rest is his voice." 

** Oh, his voice, is it? I did n't think of a voice 
exactly," said Mysie, meditatively. 

" Well, you see," replied Blanche in an apolo- 
getic tone, '* he was very much excited in the 
time of the war ; and there was a good deal of 
news, and he cried too much and too loud, and 
' sort of wore out his voice,' as the Captain says. 
But he 's very nice and obliging ; and though you 
can't tell a word he says when he cries, if you stop 
him and ask the news, he '11 tell you all about 
it in a voice just like anybody. And he knows 
everything about the shipping and all that ; it is 
quite a mystery how he gets hold of it some- 
times." 

" I suppose he gives his entire mind to it, as 

4 



5 O NANTUCKE T. SCRAPS. 

the young man in ' Punch ' did to tying his 
cravat," suggested Mysie. 

"I suppose he does," replied Blanche, placidly. 
" Anyway, he gives his entire time ; for he watches 
up in the church tower noon and night until the 
boat appears in sight, sometimes just leaving the 
Vineyard, and then he gives a tremendous blast 
of his horn north, south, east, and west, just like 
those Back-Bay angels, you know ; and so every- 
body knows' the boat is coming, and most every- 
body goes down to see her come in. Then, too, 
he sees all the schooners or larger vessels that 
are coming in or going by, and he cries all that 
sort of information without getting anything for 
it. He always tells when the barges are coming 
with stone for the jetty they are building to pro- 
tect the harbor; and when the first ones came 
into the harbor he shrieked all over town, * The 
jetty's at the wharf! The jetty's at the wharf! ' 
Then between the boats he cries announcements 
of meat auctions, and temperance lectures, and 
picnics at South Shore, and lady's pocket-hand- 
kerchiefs and bags and knitting-work strayed or 
stolen, or in fact anything anybody wants every- 
body else to know. Here he is." 

And around the corner rushed a spare athletic 



D 10 NTS. 5 I 

figure, '* hasting by like a post who tarrleth not," 
yet finding time for a good-natured glance and 
nod, and then a roar no doubt kindly intended to 
carry a private revelation to the '' women-folks," 
for whom Billy is said to entertain a special 
kindness, but which in this instance failed to 
convey any information to their uncultured 
ears. 

" There 's the one o'clock bell," remarked 
Blanche. '' You must go up the Unitarian steeple 
and see- that bell some day; it has a story like 
everything else here. But dinner is ready, and I 
do believe there 's papa ! " 

The boat had brought an Influx of visitors, in- 
cluding not only Blanche's papa and mamma, 
but the senor and sefiora, with several young 
people, to whose society Mysie felt that she 
must resign her blithe little comrade, comforting 
herself, however, in the air of fresh young life 
and buoyant merriment surrounding unspoiled 
and really yo7tng young people, becoming, alas ! 
more the exception than the rule in American 
society and at American watering-places. 

*' Now let us begin to do something Nantuck- 
ety ! " cried Harry, as the party rose from dinner 



52 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

and swarmed out upon the porch, chattering all 
at once like a flock of blackbirds. 

''Yes, let us go to South Shore, — to Surf 
Side, I mean," replied Blanche eagerly. "We 
have saved it till you came. Oh, papa, the en- 
gine is named '' Dionis " after the first Tristram 
Coffin's wife ; and when it whistles they say Di- 
onis is shrieking at the invasion of Coofs." 

''Coofs?" echoed Mysie, anxious to gather 
every crumb of Nantucket lore drifting past. 

*' Yes, that 's our old Nantucket politeness to- 
ward strangers," remarked the senor, who after 
a score or so of years among the Spaniards had 
returned to visit his birth-place, with the appre- 
ciation only long exile gives. " Your Nantucketer 
of fifty years ago was a good deal like a Chinese 
map-maker, who draws a circle touching the four 
sides of his paper for China, and puts the rest of 
the world in the corners." 

** Or like the boys of Marblehead of the same 
epoch, who, when a stranger appeared in town, 
cried, ' Hullo ! here 's a man ! Let 's rock him !' " 

"Rock him in a cradle did they mean?" in- 
quired Blanche, innocently. 

" They meant, stone him ; only they were such 
a vigorous set of urchins that nothing less than 



DIONIS. 53 

rocks would serve them for missiles," explained 
her papa. 

"But why Coofs?" persisted Mysie. 

" Qiiien sabel" exclaimed the senor, with an 
unconscious shrug of the shoulders and eye- 
brows. '* It was a Nantucket word, that 's all, 
and it has gone out of fashion ; now they call 
their visitors strangers, or off-islanders, — just as 
in New York they call Jews Israelites after they 
get into Fifth Avenue." 

'* If we are going to Surf-side it is time to 
start," suggested Blanche. '' Dionis shrieks at 
two." 

** But the conductor takes a good look up 
Main Street before he steps aboard, and if any 
old lady is seen turning the corner he waits for 
her," laughed Rose. 

'' Suppose we three go on and tell them the 
rest are coming," suggested Harry, with elabo- 
rate carelessness. 

" Run along if you like," said papa, good- 
naturedly. 

" Improvements are not always betterments," 
said the senor to Mysie, who was rather wistfully 
watching the three young things tripping away 
so merrily. " In my day, the girls and I walked 



54 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

all the way to South Shore instead of down to 
the deiDot. Three miles out and three back, and 
then we were ready to dance all night, and go 
fishing next morning." 

" Each generation is more heroic in its enjoy- 
ments than the succeeding one," said Mysie, cyn- 
ically. "■ Fifty years from now it will be sufficient 
for the young man to recline with a lily in his 
hand, while the girls read him poems about the 
sounding sea. It will be quite too fatiguing to 
go and look at it." 

" Come, come, you two ! " exclaimed the jovial 
papa, "the cakes and ale are not all gone yet; 
come on, and let us have our share." 

So, over asphalt and cobble, past the museum 
where the sperm whale's jaw still patiently bided 
its time, and down the sunny Main Street 
streamed the gay party, until at the corner of a 
transverse street they came upon a vehicle very 
like an exaggerated open street-car, the seats 
almost filled with passengers, upon whose faces 
rested a nearly universal smile, — that shame- 
faced and yet expectant character of smile ob- 
servjable on the countenances of the people who 
adventure in the merry-go-round at a picnic, or 
who ride in the elephant's howdah at a circus, 



DIONIS. 5 5 

or who honestly respond to the mesmerlzer's 
call for subjects at a lecture : people, in fact, 
who wish to try a new amusement, but feel it 
to be both risky and ridiculous. 

The old lady who, at the opening of the Fitch- 
burg road, requested the conductor to " drive 
kind o' easy along at first," as she w^as n't 
sure she 'd like it, was probably not there ; 
but her sisters, her cousins, and her aunts all 
were, and the family likeness was striking. 

Rose, Blanche, and Harry had secured the 
rear seat as affording the best view of the coun- 
try ; and no sooner were the party placed than 
Dionis, uttering a dismal shriek, set off, amid 
peals of laughter from not only the passengers 
but the knot of spectators waiting about, as if a 
new whaler were to be launched. This good- 
humored merriment .was in point of fact part 
of the rolling stock of the road, and extended 
through all classes of people concerned with it: 
the man who rang the bell always rang it as if he 
were firing a bunch of crackers under the school- 
master's chair ; the conductor announced the way 
stations of '* Washington Street" and *' Hooper's" 
with the genial smile of a man propounding a 
funny conundrum; and when on the return trip 



5 6 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

he announced " Nantucket," it never failed to 
evoke a peal of laughter, in which he usually 
joined. On several occasions persons came 
running across the fields waving their hands to 
arrest the train, which never failed to stop and 
take them aboard ; and once the conductor, 
with his hand on the string, called to some 
pedestrian friend, " Want to ride ? " and looked 
quite grieved that the offer should be re- 
fused. 

Past the deserted candle-works, the closed 
warehouses, the crumbling wharves, which tell of 
Nantucket's decadence as a whaling port, and 
out upon the beautiful moors not just here to be 
described, and on through the balmy yet invigo- 
rating southerly wind, until Dionis, with a scream 
of angry protest at not being allowed to carry 
her freight clear over the bluff and into the sea, 
stopped short, and the passengers clambering 
down made their way through piles of lumber, 
and past the two great barracks in building for 
skating rink and restaurant, to the edge of a 
steep bluff, below which boomed disdainfully the 
mighty sea, defying man to encroach by one 
little inch upon the domain he claims to-day, as 
he claimed it centuries and aeons before man, 



DIONIS. 57 

white or red, came to gaze upon his grandeur. 
A very noticeable feature of this shore, as of that 
at Sconset and all along the southern coast of 
Nantucket, is the loneliness of the sea view. No 
sail shimmers out from the deep blue of sky 
and water, no plume of smoke announces the 
passage of a steamer, no pleasure-boat dances 
over those stately and ponderous waves ; the 
whole expanse, unlimited save for the limits of 
man's vision, and the curve of the little globe 
he inhabits, is as lonely to-day as on that when 
Columbus stood arguing the existence of a new 
world before the royalty of Spain. The reason 
given is twofold ; this tract of water is out of the 
regular course of either outward bound or coast- 
ing vessels, and moreover it is so dangerous, with 
its sunken reefs, its strong currents, and its furi- 
ous winds, that prudent navigators will avoid it 
when they can. It was off this South Shore that 
the '' Newton " came to her end that Christmas 
Eve, when every man on board was lost; and 
here, too, it was that Thomas Delap and Amos 
Otis were "east a-shore and perisht in y^ snow- 
storm there." And as one listens to the vivid 
reminiscences of some of the old people who 
have witnessed as many wrecks as they are years 



58 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

old, or culls the information from scattering 
records and histories, one learns to look over 
this great field of stern and threatening waters 
with a feeling very different from that evoked by 
an ordinary summer sea, busy with human traffic, 
or gay with human pleasure. 

Hector St. John, who visited Nantucket in 
1782, and gives his impressions of it in a charm- 
ing old book called " Letters of an American 
Farmer," speaks of this watery waste in these 
words : — 

''This island, as has been already hinted, appears 
to be the summit of a huge sandy mountain affording 
some acres of dry land for the habitation of man ; 
other submarine hills lie to the southward of this, at 
different depths and distances. This dangerous region 
is well known to mariners by the name of Nantucket 
Shoals. These are the bulwarks which so powerfully 
defend this island from the impulse of the mighty 
ocean, and repel the force of its waves, which but 
for the accumulated barriers would ere now have dis- 
solved its foundations and torn it in pieces. These 
are the banks which afforded to the first inhabitants 
of Nantucket their daily subsistence, as it was from 
these shoals that they drew the origin of that wealth 
which they now possess, and was the . school where 
they first learned to venture farther, as the fish of 
their coast receded." 



DIONIS. 59 

From this point of view the *' Rips," as these 
foam-covered banks are called, gain a new dig- 
nity ; and it is quite true that they alone break 
the force of the wave starting from the shores 
of Africa and aiming at the destruction of 
Nantucket. 

'' Come downstairs and sit on the sands," 
cried Blanche, running back from the steps to 
where Mysie stood awe-stricken and silent before 
this majesty of loneliness. So down the wooden 
steps, whose base is often \v'ashed by the waves 
now rolling three or four hundred feet away, 
they went, and after strolling for a while through 
the fatiguing sand sat down upon shawls and 
gave themselves to the never-wearying fascina- 
tion of watching the long waves roll in, comb 
over with the sunlight burnishing to gold the 
green concave of the glorious curve, and then 
break thunderously upon the sand, — the foam 
now and again rushing up to overwhelm some 
group of unwary loungers, who sprang laughing 
to their feet and scuttled ignominiously out of 
reach. One of Mysie's favorite occupations, 
both here and at Sconset, was to provide herself 
with shawls and a book, — Chinese, Sanscrit, or 
Aramaic answering just as well as English, — and 



6o NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

heaping a pillow of the sand recline luxuriously 
upon it, the book in her hand, and watch the 
waves roll in, comb over, break, and retreat, the 
ten thousandth one just as attractive as the first. 
She felt it then, and feels it now, to'be a frivolous 
way of spending time, in fact not spending it at 
all, but just giving it away ; and yet — and yet 
— perhaps on the whole those hours were as 
well spent as those of the ladies who with veils 
over their complexions seated themselves as 
soon as they reached the sands upon their camp- 
stools, and tatted or crocheted or ric-racked the 
golden hours away, looking up with vague 
smiles when some one exclaimed, '* Oh, what 
a magnificent breaker ! " and replying, " Ele- 
gant, isn't it? Three, four, five, six, — Mary, 
this does n't look right to me ; did you bring 
the rule?" No doubt, however, the sea-air did 
them good. 

Dionis makes her leisurely trips back and 
forth during every hour, except of course those 
when the officials are getting their dinner and 
tea, — for on Nantucket the idea of one man 
being served at the expense of another man's 
comfort or convenience has not yet super- 
seded that notion of individual dignity and the 



DIONIS. 6 1 

individual's right to himself and his time which 
is the quintessence of republicanism. The ir- 
ruption of coofs with money in their pockets 
will no doubt soon corrupt this primitive nobility 
of character; but the present generation with 
their traditions must pass away completely, be- 
fore a Nantucketer will stand cap in hand await- 
ing a patron's arrogant leisure. 





SCRAP V. 

THE LISBON BELL. 

*' fg^^p|0 many things to be done to-day ! " 
cried Blanche next morning, run- 
ning down the stairs and jumping off 
the last three, rather to her mamma's disap- 
proval. " Bathing and sailing and fishing and 
going to Wauwinet, and perhaps to Sconsct; 
and mamma wants to poke round in the bric-a- 
brac shops ; and then there is Mrs. McCleve." 

" What ! Mrs. McCleve still one of the lions ! " 
exclaimed the senor. '* Well, well, I 'm not so 
old as I thought I was. I '11 go and see Auntie 
McCleve before I sleep again." 

" Afternoon is the best time for that," sug- 
gested mamma; "just after dinner, instead of 
violent exercise. And, girls, you had better se- 
cure your bath first of all, and don't disappoint 
your papa of his sail; it does him so much 
good." 

" And what will you do meanwhile, my dear?" 



THE LISBON BELL. 6^ 

asked papa, reciprocating the interest and the 
smile. 

*' Oh, I will look up Miss Bettridge and her 
little stock of curios. She has always some- 
thing odd and pretty in her tiny shop." 

^' And I will go with you," said the senora. 
" I don't feel like doing anything more active 
this morning." 

'* And I," said Mysie, '' will go for a walk, and 
stu'dy Nantucket a little. Which way shall I 
go, Blanche? " 

"Oh, won't you go with us? I wish you 
bathed. Won't you come and sail afterward?" 

** No, my dear ; I still feel excessively terres- 
trial, and had rather walk than do anything else." 

** Then go and see the Portuguese bell, and 
the wind-mill, and old Captain John Gardner's 
gravestone out by the water-works ; and there 's 
lots more burying-grounds." 

" If I might offer my services as cicerone," 
suggested the sefior, '' I should enjoy reviving 
my own old memories of Nantucket ; and I 
once knew a good deal about it in one way 
and another." 

'' Do you know where to get the key of the 
belfry?" shrewdly inquired Blanche. 



^4 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

The senor laughed, with his Spanish shrug: 
" Oh, if it is still the same blessed old lock I used 
to pick when I was a boy, I '11 open it with my 
pocket-knife, or almost any key that comes 
handy. We used to go up there and tie cannon- 
crackers to the tongue of the bell, show lights 
out of the windows, daub phosphorus on the 
walls, — in fact what did n't we do? And there 
are so many dodge-holes in the old place we 
always managed to get off scot-free." 

" That was the worst of it — for you," re- 
marked the senora, sententiously. 

" But there is a new lock," announced Blanche 
triumphantly. " Billy Clark told us about it, and 
how the boys plagued him when he went up to 
look out for the steamer, and to blow his horn 
north, south, east, and west to tell when she 
was coming ; and so they got a real splendid 
new lock and put on just to please him, and he 
keeps the key, and nobody can go up without 
his leave." 

*' Ah ! " exclaimed the seiior not much discon- 
certed. " Well, Billy and I are old friends, and I 
am not afraid but we shall find entrance when 
you are ready, madame." 

Billy proved amenable, and not only granted 



THE LISBO.V BELL. 65 

the boon requested, but added that of his own 
society, leading the way up many steep and 
breathless stairs with a cat-like activity hard to 
emulate. The first flight led to a dim and un- 
finished chamber, where the two night watch- 
men alternate, one taking repose while the other 
in the belfry above gazes down upon the sleep- 
ing town, watching for the first appearance of 
fire, — an enemy justly dreaded by Nantucketers 
since the Great Fire, as it is respectfully styled, 
of July, 1846. There had, to be sure, been fires 
before in Nantucket, — a pretty big one in 1836 ; 
but this of ten years later was a disaster from 
which the old place will probably never recover, 
for it ate out the heart of the town, destroying 
most of the shops on Main Street, the principal 
private residences, and many of the oil factories 
and warehouses. Like that other great fire in 
London, — really not so disastrous judging by 
consequences as this, — another scourge came 
hand in hand with the conflagration ; and the 
staggering trade and commerce of Nantucket re- 
ceived its death-blow in the destruction of the 
whaling interest. Aunt Julia, the sweet old lady 
of Mysie's temporary home, gave her a most vivid 
and touching description of the scene, — telling 

5 



66 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

how the shopkeepers brought out pieces of rich 
silk and satin to spread over their roofs and shop- 
fronts, thinking the floating flakes would not kin- 
dle upon them ; and how the oil merchants rolled 
their casks of oil off the wharves into the water; 
and how the housewives, spreading down sheets 
upon the floor, emptied drawers and boxes into 
them, tied them in great budgets, and sent them 
out into the fields, — saving a good deal that was 
worthless, and leaving behind stores of old china 
brought from the East by the captains of those 
days, plate, furniture, and heirlooms of many 
sorts never to be replaced, not even the silks in 
the shops. 

One phase of that night's experience must be 
given in Aunt Julia's own words, although the 
infinite pathos of the dear old voice and dim, 
far-gazing eyes is lost. 

" Mother would n't leave the house for a long 
time ; she said the fire would n't reach us, and it 
was n't until the roof was actually blazing that 
we could get her away. Then she was all in a 
hurry to go ; but we were too confused to take 
the things we needed most, and all our old fam- 
ily silver was left behind except the little in the 
hand-basket which my sister caught up as we 



THE LISBON BELL. 6'J 

left the house. I had made up a parcel of cloth- 
ing and bedding, hoping some of the neighbors 
would put it in their carts ; but nobody came, 
and the house was burning over our heads, and 
we went and left it. It was so noisy and rough 
in the streets that we turned off toward the cliffs ; 
and when we were well out of town we all three 
sat down close together and looked back at our 
home. It seemed as if the very sky and ground 
and even the water were on fire, and I for one 
could n't feel as if I ever had lived in such a 
place, or ever could again. Toward morning it 
turned chilly, and mother shivered a good deal ; 
but we had nothing to put over her, and at last 
my sister said, ' Come, there 's no use in staying 
here any longer : it is daylight now, let us go.' 
Then mother looked from one to the other of us 
and said, ' Girls, where have we to go to ? We 
have no place belonging to us anywhere ! ' I 
had n't really taken it in before, and I don't be- 
lieve my sister had either; and we just clung 
together and cried as I never have cried since. 
But God raised us up friends, and it was wonder- 
ful to see how everybody felt that what they had 
saved was to be shared with those who had noth- 
ing left. Everybody in Nantucket slept under a 



68 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

roof next night, though there were a great many 
more heads than roofs." 

Rather a long digression this time, but how 
could you understand the significance of that 
watchman's nest in the Unitarian steeple if you 
had not heard of the Great Fire ; and the only 
pity is that one must not pause to insert the vivid 
accounts of that night drawn from other lips as 
well. But the senor and Billy have ascended an- 
other flight of stairs, and are found gazing with 
melancholy interest through the pfate-glass pan- 
els of a locked door, behind which, on a long 
low table (well, it did remind one forcibly of a 
morgue), was displayed the interior economy of 
the clock, whose four faces keep Nantucket an 
con rani of Nantucket time. It is not anybody 
else's time to be sure, not even the sun's ; and 
it is an unfailing subject of conversation among 
the off-islanders to compare watches and dis- 
cuss differences between themselves, and be- 
tween everybody, and the clock. But it is a 
very fine clock, and pursues its own course with 
a good-humored unconcern as to anybody else's 
course eminently Nantuckety. Mournfully and 
respectfully turning away from the plate-glass 
window, the three aeronauts clambered up yet 



THE LISBON BELL. 69 

another stair and found themselves in presence 
of the Bell. 

We differ so widely, we human atoms, in our 
sympathies with inanimate objects ! One man is 
profoundly affected at sight of a steam-engine, 
another at a ship, or a cathedral, or a dinner ; 
another brightens up in view of a library, or a 
museum, or a lot of dreadful things from Cy- 
prus ; some persons, as in the trio under discus- 
sion, gaze with wistful interest into the bowels 
of a clock, and some find themselves subtilely 
drawn toward bells. And this last is not a 
fancy to be ashamed of, since poets have made 
bells the theme of many of their most thrilling 
songs, and artists have expended some of their 
subtilest strokes in illustrating them ; and who 
among us ever went to a school exhibition, or a 
rural lyceum, that we did not hear "The Song 
OF THE Bells " declaimed with varying degrees 
of excellence? All bells, in fact, are good and 
interesting, except that of a knife-grinder, and 
that is probably only the perversion of good ; 
but this bell in the south steeple of Nantucket is 
the best thing on the island — well, among in- 
animate objects ! It was cast in Lisbon in the 
year 18 10, and was one of a chime of six in- 



yo NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

tended for a convent, its peculiar tone the B, 
although some critics rank it as A. The chime 
completed was tried, as carillons always are be- 
fore being consecrated ; and Captain Charles 
Clasby, standing by, was moved with the de- 
sire to snatch this special pleiad from the sweet 
galaxy and make it his own. Whether Jose 
Domingues da Costa happened that day to be 
" making up a little amount," and needed Clas- 
by's dollars more than he needed the B-bell 
of his chime, we know not, nor docs history 
tell how many of said dollars went to the bar- 
gain ; but dollars conquered, and the bell, in- 
scription and all, became the property of Cap- 
tain Clasby, who, being himself bound to the 
North or South Pole after sperm whale, sent 
his prize home by Captain Thomas Cary, of 
the schooner "William and Mary." W^ild ru- 
mors of romantic incidents connected with its 
arrival on the island assail at this point the 
seeker after truth, — one ancient mariner aver- 
ring that it was wrecked and nearly lost on South 
Shore; another that it was smuggled ashore to 
avoid duties, and hidden in the cellar of Sam 
Cary's warehouse ; while the neutral-tinted icon- 
oclast, who revels in uprooting legends, declares 



THE LISBON BELL. 7 1 

that it was soberly landed at a wharf, and stored 
in a cellar because it was too heavy to place on 
the floor of the store-house. At any rate, it was 
after a while bought by the parish of the South 
Church for $500,00, and hung in its present po- 
sition in 181 5. It was rung for the first time Dec. 
18, 18 1 5, in honor of the birth of the infant son 
of some island magnate, and one hardly knows 
whether to smile at the sarcasm upon itself Nan- 
tucket thus perpetrated, or to sigh compassion- 
ately over the record, that this bell, bearing the 
inscription it does, should have been rung De- 
cember 18 in honor of the birth of a baby, and 
remain silent December 25, when all Christen- 
dom was rejoicing over the birth of the Babe 
of Bethlehem. Mysie suggested this idea to one 
of the great men of Nantucket, and received the 
reply, — 

" Well, I don't see that what happened in 
Judea a couple of thousand years ago has much 
to do with Nantucket." 

And on reflection Mysie did not see that it had. 
The inscription set in raised letters above the 
quaintly ornamented Vim of the bell runs thus: 

"Ao bom JEZUS do Monte completao seus v6tos 
OS devotos de Lisboa offerecendo Lhe hum completo 



72 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

jogo de seis sinos para chamar os povos que adorao 
no seu sanctuario. 

" Jos^ Domingues da Costa o fez em Lisboa, no anno 
de 1810." 

Or in English : — 

'^ To the Good Jesus of the Mountain the devout 
of Lisbon direct their prayers, offering Him a com- 
plete chime of six bells, to call the people to adore 
Him in His Sanctuary. Jose Domingues da Costa 
made it in the year 18 10." 

Mysie mused over this inscription and the 
memories and associations it evoked, until Billy, 
who with that fine courtesy natural to the un- 
corrupt American man in presence of a woman, 
had waited in patient silence through what must 
have seemed to him an absurd length of time, 
remarked, — 

** She 's a going to strike twelve; and then 
they '11 ring the noon bell. You won't be scared, 
will you? " 

More afraid of being deafened than scared, 
Mysie hastily withdrew down the ladder, and 
looking up from a safe distance saw as well as 
heard the ponderous clapper moved by the 
clock's works rise and fall, *' with twelve great 
shocks of sound," and then the whole bell re- 



THE LISBON BELL. 73 

volve, ringing out its sweet-toned call to weary 
artisans, and " stalled " school-children and idle 
coofs, to come home and enjoy the noontide meal. 

One item about the bell must not be for- 
gotten. A " gentleman from Boston," charmed 
with its silvery tone, offered in the name of the 
famous Old South Church of that city, to buy 
it at the rate of one dollar per pound, the weight 
being 1,575 ^^s. But he evidently did not know 
his Nantucket, to suppose money would buy 
what it valued as a peculiar possession ; and 
when he stated that they had a very fine clock 
in the belfry of the Old South, but had unhappily 
cracked their bell, and would like to know at 
what price this one could be bought, Nantucket 
replied, that she had a very fine bell in her tower, 
but her clock was getting old, and she would 
like to know at what price the Old South clock 
could be bought ! 

However, after solacing her dignity with this 
retort, Nantucket gave the gentleman from 
Boston the address of Jose Domingues da Costa, 
of Lisbon, and the Old South soon had a very 
fine bell of her own ; while in course of time one 
of the Starbucks, resident in New York, presented 
his native town with a clock costing a thousand 



74 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

dollars, the same lying in state to-day behind 
the plate-glass windows of the morgue. 

Close beside the bell is a ladder leading to the 
cupola, a small chamber surrounded wath win- 
dows, from which may be had a most charming 
view not only of the town and its environs, but 
of nearly the whole island, with its setting of blue 
and sparkling ocean. In four of the windows, 
those facing the cardinal points, a round hole is 
neatly cut and framed about, to accommodate 
Billy Clark's spyglass, as he watches in cold or 
stormy weather for the shipping news, and also 
the angelic trumpet w^ith which he announces his 
discoveries. Billy is a very respectable-looking 
person, but does not quite meet one's idea of 
Gabriel even as popularly represented ; and yet 
as the trumpet flashed in the sunlight from the 
top of the church-steeple one could not but be 
reminded of 

" In de mornin', in de mornin' ! 
When Gabriel blows his trumpet in de mornin' ! " 





SCRAP VI. 

MRS. McCLEVE'S MUSEUM, THE WINDMILL, AND 
NEWTOWN BURYING-GROUND. 




N accordance with the sensible sugges- 
tion of the mamma, the drowsy hours 
of early afternoon were devoted to the 
museum, collected and exhibited by the public- 
spirited widow of a sea-captain named McCleve. 
An upper room of her comfortable house is 
devoted to the curios, although, like attar of 
roses, or some penetrating oils, they seem to 
have saturated the entire mansion, — the good- 
natured proprietress occasionally haling a fa- 
vored guest away from the rest to look at some 
quaint picture, piece of china, or bit of furni- 
ture in her own private apartments. The party 
of twelve or fourteen collected on this espe- 
cial afternoon were taken to the upper room 
and seated around a small table, as if for a 
spiritual seance, the hostess arranging prece- 
dence and proximity with an autocratic good 



7^ * NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

humor to which everybody yielded except the 
senor, who, standing looking in at the door, was 
presently accosted with — 

*' That gentleman at the door — why — I 've 
seen that face before ! Don't you tell me it 's 
Sam ! " 

" No, I won't, Aunty McCleve, for you 'd be 
sure to contradict me if I did," replied the seiior, 
coolly ; whereupon Aunty shook him affection- 
ately by the hand, assuring him he was the same 
" sarcy boy" he used to be, and dragged him 
most reluctantly to a seat in the magical circle. 

" At what period of the entertainment do we 
pay?" inquired one of the persons one meets 
everywhere, and who may be called the whit- 
leather of society. Mrs. McCleve looked at him 
with an appreciative eye for a moment, and then 
quietly replied, — 

" Well, it is n't often people bring it out quite 
so plain as that, but I guess yo2i 'd better pay 
now before you forget it." Whit-leather does 
not suffer from sarcasm, and the practical man 
producing a quarter of a dollar, held it tight 
while asking, — 

'* Have you got ten cents change?" 

"No, brother; but you can keep your quar- 



MRS. McCLEVE'S MUSEUM, ETC. 77 

ter till I have," replied Aunty, with the quiet 
gleam still in her eye, and the business was soon 
adjusted. This over, she placed upon the table 
a tray containing some really exquisite carv- 
ings in whale's-tooth ivory, comprising a set of 
napkin rings, thread-winders, spoons of various 
sizes, knife-handles, and several specimens of 
a utensil peculiar to Nantucket, called a jagging- 
knife, used for carving ornamental patterns in 
pastry, — a species of embroidery for which Nan- 
tucket housewives were once famous, although, 
" pity 'tis 'tis true," they have now largely eman- 
cipated themselves from such arts. 

As the guests examined these really wonder- 
ful products of talent almost unaided by imple- 
ments or training, one of the ladies naturally 
inquired, ''Who did these?" The hostess as- 
sumed a sibylline attitude and tone : ** Perhaps, 
my dear, you can tell us that; and if so, you '11 
be the first one I ever met that could." This 
obscure intimation of course awakened an inter- 
est far deeper than the carvings, in every mind ; 
and in reply to a shower of questioning the sibyl 
gave a long and intricate narration, beginning 
with the presence on board of her husband's 
whale-ship of a mystic youth with the m'anners 



78 NANTUCKET SCRAPS, 

and bearing of Porphyrogenitus, and the rating 
of a common sailor; the delicate suggestion of 
a disguised lady was also dimly introduced. 
What succeeds is yet more wonderful, as Sche- 
herezade always said when obliged to cut short 
the story that the Sultan might get up and 
say his prayers ; but we will not invade Mrs. 
McCleve's copyright by telling it, simply advis- 
ing every one to go and listen to it. 

** Two, four, six, eight, ten — elev — en!" 
counted she at the end, picking up the napkin 
rings; "I don't seem to see that twelfth ring!" 
and she looked hard at the unfortunate who had 
acquired her dislike in the first of the interview 
by an unfeeling allusion to money. 

*' Here it is. Aunty," remarked the senor. " I 
wanted to hear you ask after it." 

*' Now, look at here, Sammy, you 're too old 
for such tricks," expostulated the dame, in pre- 
cisely the tone one admonishes a naughty child ; 
and then turning to the company generally she 
added confidentially, — 

" I aint one of them that's given to suspicion, 
and it aint a Nantucket failing; but last summer 
there was a boy, one of those half-grown critters, 
you know, neither beef nor veal, and I just saw 



MRS. AIcC LEVELS MUSEUM, ETC. 79 

him pocket — well, it was that very knife-handle. 
I always kept an eye on it since, thinking it 
might be off yet. So I waited till I saw he 
actooally meant it, and was fixing to go off with 
it, and then says I, — 

" ' Well, sonny, going to unload before you 
start out on a new v'y^^'^' So that's all about 
the carvings ; and these are sharks' teeth, — none 
of your VVauwinet sand-sharks that would run 
away from a puppy-dog no bigger than that, but 
a reg'lar man-eater off the West Indies; and 
these very teeth took a man's leg off." 

" Horrible ! " cried one, while another, one of 
the persistent souls who must finish A before 
they begin B, inquired, ** But did the boy give 
up the knife-handle ? " 

" Why, of course he did, my dear, since that 's 
it," replied the hostess compassionately; and 
then, with the inborn courtesy peculiar to Nan- 
tucket folk, turned aside the laugh that followed 
by hastily displaying some new marvel. The 
room was crowded with marine curiosities, many 
of them brought home by the deceased captain, 
many of them presented to his relict by his com- 
rades or her own friends ; they were mostly such 
as we have seen many times in many places, but 



So NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

some few were siii generis , — such as a marriage 
contract between a Quaker bachelor and maid in 
the early days of the island, with the signatures 
of half the settlers appended as witnesses, mutual 
consent before others being the only ceremony 
required by the canon of these Nonsacramenta- 
rians. Then there was Phoebe-Ann's comb, a 
wonderful work of art in tortoise-shell ; anent 
which the possessor, Phcebe-Ann's sister, deliv- 
ered a short original poem, setting forth how 
ardently Phoebe-Ann had desired one of these 
immense combs, their price being eight dollars 
each; and how, having engaged it, she set to 
work to earn it by picking berries for sale ; but 
before the pence had grown to the pounds the 
big comb was out of fashion, and poor Phoebe- 
Ann's hair, which had been wonderfully luxuri- 
ant, fell off through illness, and what remained 
was cut short. Nantucket probity would not, 
however, be off its bargain for such cause as this ; 
and Phoebe-Ann paid her money and took her 
monumental comb, — more useful in its pres- 
ent connection, perhaps, than it could have been 
in any other. The crown and glory of Mrs. Mc- 
Cleve's museum, however, is a carved wooden 
vase, twelve or fourteen inches in height, made 



MRS. McCLEVE'S MUSEUM, ETC. 8 1 

from the top of one of the red-cedar posts 
planted a century or two since by this lady's 
ancestor, to inclose a certain parcel of land 
belonging to him. Twenty or thirty years ago 
the fence was to be renewed, and one of her 
cousins proposed to her to drive out to the place 
and secure a relic of the original island cedar 
now extinct. She accepted ; and the section of 
post, sawed off with great exertion by the cousin, 
was turned and carved into its present shape 
in " Cousin Reuben • Macy's shop on Orange 
Street." 

But all this is set forth in an original poem 
delivered with much unction by its author, who 
decisively refuses a copy to any and everybody, 
and is even chary of letting any one listen to it 
more than once. It is original, — in fact, one 
may say, intensely original, — and quite as well 
worth listening to as the saga of a royal skald. 
It begins after this fashion : — 

*'This vase, of which we have in contemplation, 
Merits, my friends, your careful observation. 



Saturday, the busiest day of all, 

From Cousin Thomas I received a call." — 

Some lost couplets record the invitation to. drive, 

6 



82 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

and the demur on account of pies then baking 
in the oven ; but this being overruled by mas- 
cuhne persuasiveness, — 

" Across the hall I gayly skipped, 
And soon was for the cruise equipped." 

Then follows the drive, the arrival, and the 
attempt to cut the stern old cedar trunk with a 
dull saw, — 

" Cousin Thomas worked with desperation, 
Until he was in a profuse perspiration," 

and finally secured the trophy here exhibited. 
But these stray couplets give a very inadequate 
idea of the poem as delivered by its author; 
and he who visits Nantucket and does not hear 
it has for the rest of his life a lost opportunity 
to lament. 

Just at the close of the recital the poetess fixed 
her eye steadily upon a figure drooping beside 
one of the windows, and sternly inquired, — 

" Is that woman sick? Why don't somebody 
see to her? " 

It was true that the culprit, overcome by the 
heat of the room, the excitement of the narra- 
tive, and possibly certain ancient and fish-like 
odors connected with marine specimens, had 



MRS. McCLEVE'S MUSEUM, ETC. 83 

fainted a little ; but was speedily recovered by 
the usual remedies, prominent among which in 
these days Is a disinclination to have one's 
crimps spoiled by the application of w^ater ; and 
the incident was made memorable by the vale- 
dictory of the hostess : — 

*' Now if any of you want to come in again 
while you stay on the island you can, without 
paying anything; and if I don't remember 
you, just say, ' I was here the day the woman 
fainted,' and I shall know It 's all right." And 
we heard that the experiment was tried and 
succeeded. 

As the party left the house the seiior lingered 
to say, " We are going up to the old wind- 
mill, Aunty. Didn't it belong to your family 
once? " 

"I should say it did, Sammy. They wanted 
a windmill and did n't know how to make one ; 
and they got an off-islander, name of Wilbur, to 
make it, and like fools gave him the money be- 
forehand. He went back to the continent for 
something, — nails maybe, or maybe Idees, — 
and carried the money with him ; some pirate or 
other got wind of it, and the first they knew down 
here, the man was robbed and murdered there 



84 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

on Cape Cod. That did n't put up a windmill 
though, and the women had got most tired 
grinding their samp and meal in those old stone 
mortars, or even a handmill ; so some of the 
folks spoke to my grandfather Elisha Macy 
about it, and he thought it over, and finally went 
to bed and dreamed just how to build it, and 
next day got up and built it. That 's the story 
of thaty my dear." 

"A regular case of revelation, wasn't it?" 
suggested the senor with a twinkle in his eye ; 
to which the hostess rather sharply replied, — 

" I don't profess to know much about reveala- 
tion, and I don't surmise you know much more, 
Sammy; but that's how the windmill was bu,ilt." 

History adds another anecdote of the wind- 
mill, worthy to be preserved for its Nantuckety 
flavor. Eighty-two years from its marvellous 
inception, the mill had grown so old and infirm 
that its owners concluded to sell it for lumber 
if need be. A meeting was called, and Jared 
Gardner, the man who was supposed to be w^isest 
in mills of any on the island, was invited to at- 
tend, and succinctly asked by Sylvanus Macy, — 

''Jared, what will thee give for the mill with- 
out the stones? " 



MRS. McCLEVE'S MUSEUM, ETC. 85 

*' Not one penny, Sylvanus," replied Jared as 
succinctly ; and the other, — 

" What will thee give for it as it stands, 
Jared?" 

" I don't feel to want it at any price, friend," 
replied Jared indifferently. 

The mill-owners consulted, and presently re- 
turned to the charge with, — 

" Jared, thee must make us an offer." 

^' Well, then, twenty dollars for firewood, Syl- 
vanus." 

The offer was accepted immediately; and 
shrewd Jared did not burn his mill even to roast 
a sucking pig, but repaired and used it to his 
own and his neighbors' advantage, until the day 
of his death. 

These items of information were given by the 
senor, as he and Mysie picked their way up 
the broken hill upon whose crest the windmill 
stands, gray and venerable, — that is, as we of 
the New World count venerable. A crabbed old 
Portuguese named Juan Silva is miller now, and 
showed but scant civility to his guests, until he 
discovered that one of them had been on his 
native island, and could speak some phrases of 
its vernacular, when he thawed and became quite 



86 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

genial. The outlook from the upper windows, 
like that from the bell-tower, shows all and more 
than all of the island framed in its rim of shin- 
ing waters ; and the massive oak-frame of the 
mill, growth of the primeval forest of Nantucket, 
has a certain charm of antiquity enhanced by 
the knowledge that no more oaks, no more 
cedars, no more men like those of old, will grow 
upon this little island for evermore. 

'* Do you see that graveyard on the rising 
land over there?" inquired the -senor, point- 
ing through the mill window; and Mysie re- 
pHed, — 

'' How charmingly desolate it looks ! Which 
is it?" 

*' The Old South, or the Newtown, as you 
please. There Is one stone in it well worth 
another mile if you feel up to it." 

'' Allons ! " responded Mysie ; and, as they 
went, the senor related many an island tradition, 
or told the exploits of his own boyhood, with 
very much of the vague regret so pathetically 
hanging round that song of our dear dead 
singer, — 

" For a boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 



MRS. McCLEVE'S MUSEUM, ETC. 8/ 

A solitary farm-house stands hard by the stile 
over which, living, one surmounts the graveyard 
wall ; dead, one enters by the gate. In the door 
of this farm-house stood a comely young ma- 
tron, arms a-kimbo, who called to the pedestri- 
ans with a friendly nod, — 

" Wind 's shifting round to the nor'ard, and 
we'll have a tempest before long; better not 
go too far beyond shelter." 

" Thank you, neighbor," replied the seiior, 
heartily. '' If it comes on to storm we '11 make 
port here. Going to see Huldah Snow." 

'* Yes? — well, she 's there, I guess," replied the 
other a little cynically, for Nantucket does not 
prize its own treasures as strangers do, and is not 
much given to meditations in graveyards, or 
indeed anywhere else. 

So, over the stile and down knee-deep into the 
rank, dry grass beyond, and presently the two 
stood before a melancholy white stone all awry, 
whose record Mysie copied verbatim, as thus : 

HULDAH, WIFE OF BENJAMIN SNOW. 
Died Jan 29, 1855, aged 62. 

However dear She was not laid here 
Some private grief was her disease 
Laid to the North her friends to please. 



88 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

"And now, what does it mean?" inquired she, 
as she finished writing. 

" Well," said the senor, with a deprecatory 
shrug, *' there was a Httle unpleasantness in the 
family, I believe ; and Huldah's friends were 
rather bitter against Benjamin, translating the 
* private grief into 'incompatibility of temper' 
on his side. At any rate, they insisted that her 
remains should lie with those of her own people 
in the North Burying-ground, as they actually 
do, while Benjamin's sorrow found expression in 
this stone as you see, — thus securing the last 
word, contrary to the usual rule in quarrels be- 
tween man and wife." 

"■ Charming ! Are there any more as good 
here?" asked Mysie, looking wistfully over the 
briery, wind-swept hillside. . 

** Not as good, perhaps ; but see here, — 

" In Memory of Sleeping Dust ;'* 
and this, — 

ALFRED G. 
Died at Sea ; 

and this old stone, with everything scaled off its 
face except the hour-glass and the date, 1766. 
And one more over this way — yes, here it is : 



MRS. McCLEVE'S MUSEUM, ETC. 89 

Erected by a number of young men, friends of the 

deceased, to the memory of 

SUSAN P., 

daughter of Zimri and Sarah Cleaveland, who was drowned 

in Madaket Harbour 

July 24, 1849, 

^T 24 years. 

A great drop of rain plashed upon the note- 
book just on the word " drowned;" it may have 
been the materiahzed tear of one of those young 
men gone to rejoin the fair girl, whom one must 
fancy lovely, winning, and sweet beyond the 
common measure, to have drawn forth this me- 
morial. But the rain-drop was a warning as well 
as a tribute, and, not to share the watery death 
of poor Susan, the explorers hastened through 
grass and briers, weeds and thorns, stumbling 
over stumps of crumbled away gravestones, and 
into hollows where what lay beneath had mould- 
ered and sunken, until the stile was crossed, and 
the hospitable farm-house stood close at hand. 
But just then the drops ceased, swallowed in a 
long, cold sigh of wind, just such as might issue 
from an opened tomb, and Mysie proposed hast- 
ening on, and only seeking shelter when driven 
to do so. 

"Very well," said the senor, ''we will go home 



90 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

through Guinea, and I will introduce you to 
some of my particular friends there." 

Half a mile or so was soon sped, and a low- 
hung cloud suddenly burst, dashing its bright 
drops into the faces of the voyag'ers with all the 
malicious fun of an Undine. 

" Just in time ! " cried the seiior. '' Here 's 
Pompey's house." 

A neat little painted cottage, with ground well 
tilled and not without ornament, lying pleas- 
antly all around, and a comely young woman, 
dark of skin but Caucasian of feature, to open 
the door and smilingly bid the wayfarers enter. 
A pretty sitting-room opened into a great cheer- 
ful kitchen, neat as a bee-hive, and Pompey's 
wife, untying her checked apron, threw it upon a 
chair ; but presently, at the frank request of the 
senor, resumed both it and the pan of peas she 
was shelling, while replying modestly, yet with 
a certain free-born self-respect, to the questions 
of her visitor, whose name she knew very well, al- 
though she had grown up since he left the island. 

" And your husband is Sampson Pompey, who 
used to go out fishing and shooting with me?" 
asked the senor. " Many an hour we 've lain as 
close as any two of those peas in the pod, over 



MRS. McC LEVELS MUSEUM, ETC. 9 1 

there in Pocomo Harbor, waiting for the wild 
fowl." 

" Yes, there used to be a great many geese 
there," said Mrs. Pompey, quite innocently ; and 
the senor, with a dry little smile, replied medita- 
tively, — 

" Yes, plenty of geese, and plenty of ducks, 
too, when I was a lad here ; but all gone now, I 
dare say." 

Then he began asking questions out of a very 
retentive memory, about the relatives, friends, 
and acquaintances of this young woman ; and it 
appeared that she and half-a-dozen other girls 
of her own nationality had graduated with honor 
from the High School, — one of them now teach- 
ing an advanced public school in New Orleans ; 
another bearing away from several active white 
competitors a diploma answering to the "double- 
first " of an English college, and, as Mrs. Pompey 
rather despondently said, — 

" Most any of them better worth while than 
me. 

" How many children did you say you had? " 
asked the sefior. 

''Two, sir; boys, both of 'em." 

*' Then the great Napoleon would have ranked 



92 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

you above any one of those school-ma'ams and 
bookkeepers." 

"" Is that so? " asked the young mother, with a 
smile showing the most perfect of teeth and 
brightest of eyes. 

Undine had passed by, and as the explorers 
fared on their way the senor gave many interest- 
ing details of the African occupancy of Nan- 
tucket, — once large, now dwindling rapidly, 
partly from the abolition of slavery, partly from 
the dearth of occupation for any sort of laborers. 
As in most places, the negroes of Nantucket are 
religious in their own fervid fashion, and there 
have been several Bethels and Zions devoted to 
their worship ; but these have shrunken to one, 
presided over by a remarkable man, with whom 
Mysie had subsequently some acquaintance. 
All that she saw and all that she heard tended 
to solidify a conviction long forming in her mind, 
that the African, but more especially the man of 
mixed race, can be cultivated and encouraged 
up to a certain point just as successfully as the 
Caucasian ; and that both the one and the other 
are apt to live up or .down to the standard set for 
them by their associates. Intelligent and even 
benevolent persons, who judge the negro by the 



MRS. McCLEVE'S MUSEUM, ETC 93 

Specimens found in their peculiar haunts in large 
cities, dispose of him very briefly, as ** dirty, ly- 
ing, immoral, lazy," etc. ; but if these persons 
will conscientiously seek out an equal number of 
Celtic or even Anglo-Saxon or native American 
specimens of the same social grade, the same 
education, occupations, examples, and teaching, 
it is our impression that they will find the above 
named vices as fully developed as in the African, 
with the addition of drunkenness and ruffianism, 
vices not constitutionally African. 

On the other hand, take negroes and place 
them, as on Nantucket, among a simple, truly 
charitable people, where they will be treated and 
trained precisely as if they wore white skins, or 
rather without any reference to their skins, and 
they will at any rate in the second and third 
generations be in every respect equal to their 
white associates. 

Whether more expanded modes of treatment 
and a longer time might develop higher ca- 
pacities, and whether the soft and plastic ma- 
terial could ever receive the polish of marble, 
are questions impossible to answer without 
experimental knowledge. 

This theory was confirmed by a flying call, 



94 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

made during the next shower, upon one of Mrs. 
Pompey's neighbors, pure Anglo-Saxon of blood, 
but neither so intelligent, educated, nor courteous 
as that young woman, while the house was quite 
lacking in the air of cheerful well-being char- 
acteristic of Pompey's cottage. 

The showers now settled into a steady down- 
pour and the sefior exclaimed, — 

" Stress of weather excuses all informality ; so 
we will make port here, and I will give you a 
glimpse of a first-class Nantucket home." 

Mysie opened her mouth to object, but the 
rain closed it again before she could speak, and 
the senor leading the way through a pretty little 
flower-garden, opened a door and walked in, 
calling aloud, — 

" Harbor-master ahoy ! Small fleet put in in 
distress ! " 

The hail was responded to by a voice at once 
maritime and cordial, and the Captain advanced 
with extended hand from the open door of the 
charming parlor, where presently his wife wel- 
comed her informal visitors with gracious ease, 
entertained them as long as they would stay, 
and finally equipped them with wraps, shoes, 
and umbrellas as many as they would accept. 



MRS. McCLEVE'S MUSEUM, ETC. 95 

" Yes," said the senor, with a sigh, as they 
plashed along toward home, " that 's the way 
everybody lived in Nantucket when the Captain 
and I were boys. Every door stood open, or at 
most latched, with the string hanging out; and 
every man, woman, and child felt a friendly inter- 
est in every other, and nobody was homeless or 
friendless, whatever happened to his own house 
or his own family. The Great Fire showed that. 
But they tell me things are changing fast." 

*' The Summer Boarder, with his wants and 
his money, has ruined other places than Nan- 
tucket," replied Mysie, ruefully. " I went to 
Mount Desert in 1864, and they timidly charged 
us three dollars per week for board ; and we 
could sit for hours on Great Head, or by the 
Spouting Horn, without seeing a human face, or, 
which is perhaps worse, an egg-shell, a piece of 
buttery paper, or an empty claret bottle." 

" You never will see it so again, I 'm afraid," 
said the senor, blithely. 

'* No, nor you Nantucket, as it was when you 
were a boy," retorted Mysie. 





SCRAP VII. 



FRIENDS. 




S has been previously remarked, it is not 
everybody who Hkes Nantucket; not 
everybody who discovers its features of 
interest, or finds them interesting when pointed 
out. To really enjoy them when found, a cer- 
tain amount of physical strength is requisite, and 
so is a pair of thick shoes, also a short dress, and 
a hat capable of being tied securely down ; for the 
best of Nantucket is to be found by walking, some- 
times actively, — as in the case of John Gardner's 
grave, or the cliff, or the burying-grounds, or the 
farm, now owned by a Mr. Smith, where Benjamin 
Franklin's mother lived as child and girl, and from 
whose spring she drew water, all unconscious 
of her posthumous fame. And sometimes the 
walk is of a prowling nature, through by-streets 
and lanes, where one pauses to talk a little over 
garden fences to rather reticent old folk, who 
will occasionally invite a " stranger" into their 



FRIENDS. 97 

houses still, and may perhaps after a while be 
coaxed into some slow, quaint old story with a 
Rip Van Winkle flavor to it. 

Occasionally Mysie ventured to knock at an 
open door, or even at a closed one, and asking 
leave to sit and rest for a little, would slide into 
a gentle gossip with the inmates, usually finding 
any reserve or suspicion fade away as her gen- 
uine respect and sympathy for Nantucket folk 
became apparent. In only one instance was she 
treated with rudeness and inhospitality, and as 
that has been forgiven it shall be forgotten. 

The professional bric-a-brac shops are not 
interesting, except to the freshest of novices in 
such merchandise ; but occasionally one finds in 
houses, where to speak of purchase were an insult, 
a set or a piece of rare old India china, or carved 
furniture, or sometimes pictures. Two of these, 
seen by Mysie, were rich and dark old paintings, 
— one, evidently German, representing a hand- 
some youth in an ermine mantle, probably the 
portrait of some petty prince ; the other a power- 
ful representation of Christ at the Pillar of Fla- 
gellation, so realistic that one longs to rescue it 
from its present position and place it in a church 
or convent. This picture has its history, al- 

7 



98 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

though its artist remains unknown, for it was 
rescued by a Nantucket sailor from the burning 
picture-gallery of an Italian seaport, becoming, 
in his mind, a piece of lawful salvage. He 
brought it home and presented it to a comrade, 
who subsequently sold it for two or three 
dollars ; and it finally became the property of 
the worthy man at present owning and dis- 
playing it in his barber's shop. Prowling thus 
about the place, Mysie noticed her own sur- 
name upon the sign of a tin-shop, and went in ; 
a dignified and venerable man came from the 
workshop at the rear, and meeting the stranger's 
eyes with a smile, but no form of salutation, 
inquired, — 

** Does thee wish for some tinware?" 
A small cup to carry upon excursions was the 
purchase first suggesting itself, and while nego- 
tiations of a very deliberate nature went on, 
Mysie mentioned the identity of name. The old 
man looked pleased and interested. 

" Did thy people come from Nantucket?" 
inquired he. " Mine have lived here more than 
a century. We have a chart at home showing 
our history and connections ; perhaps thee would 
like to look at it, if thee cares for such vanities." 



FRIENDS. 99 

*'I do very much; but I did not suppose 
Friends did," suggested Mysie. 

The kindly dark eyes of the old man gleamed 
over the top of his silver-bowed spectacles with 
a shrewd smile. 

" Is thee much acquainted among Friends?" 
asked he. 

" Not at all, I am sorry to say. " 

" When thee is, I think thee will find them 
much like other people, so far as human nature 
goes." 

The acquaintance thus begun did not here 
finish ; and in course of time Mysie was privi- 
leged to visit the pleasant home and the sweet 
saintly wife of this honored Friend, — a friend, 
but no relative, for the chart clearly tracing his 
genealogy did not include hers. Also she re- 
ceived the freedom of the workshop ; " and when 
no other visitor was there would most contentedly 
occupy the leathern arm-chair beside the open 
window, and watch the cutting and fashioning 
or repairing of vessels of tin and sheet-iron, 
while the patriarch and she exchanged views 
upon religious or social topics, agreeing better 
upon the latter than the former, where indeed 
they were as widely apart as two persons with 



lOO NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

the same ultimate end in view could well be. 
On one of these occasions an individual dressed 
as a gentleman, evidently a stranger, came into 
the outer shop and loudly demanded a basin 
fit to bail out a boat with. The proprietor 
showed him two, — one with a handle, costing 
thirty cents ; and one with no handle, priced at 
twenty-five cents. 

"■ Oh, hang the one without a handle," re- 
marked the customer, contemptuously pushing 
it aside. 

" Thee can hang it if thee chooses ; it has a 
ring for that purpose," replied the Friend, dryly. 

The customer laughed boisterously, and seiz- 
ing the other basin, said, — 

*' Come, I '11 give you a quarter for this, and 
call it even." 

** I think not, friend ; the price of that is thirty 
cents," calmly replied the other, laying a firm 
hand upon it. 

''But I haven't any money except a quarter; 
all I 've got in the world," persisted the other. 

"Really! Is thee so poor as that? Then I 
advise thee to take the cheaper dish," coolly 
retorted the Friend, casting a quick glance over 
the other's handsome yachting-suit. 



FRIENDS. 1 01 

"No getting round you, is there?" laughed 
the stranger, producing a handful of loose sil- 
ver from his pocket and selecting thirty cents. 
The nobler man eyed the money and then its 
possessor. 

" I thought thee said thee had only a quarter 
of a dollar in the world," said he, gravely. The 
man laughed a little awkwardly, but replied with 
an attempt at careless jocularity, — 

" Oh, I was only fooling, you know ; just 
talk ! " 

The steadfast gaze of those dark eyes through 
the silver-rimmed glasses must have been very 
hard to bear, for the sun-burned face of the 
recipient colored of a yet deeper red, and he 
was turning hastily away, but the Friend laying 
a detaining hand upon his shoulder, said very 
earnestly, — 

" I think thee meant to convey a false impres- 
sion, and that is worse than foolish, friend. I 
advise thee for thine own good to be more care- 
ful in future." 

" All right, old man. If I said anything out 
of the way I take it all back," replied the yachts- 
man, throwing down the money and snatching 
up the dish ; and in spite of the debonair style 



I02 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

of his departure one fancies he carried more 
than a tin basin out of that presence. Returning 
to the workshop, its master cast a smihng glance 
at Mysie, asking, — 

'' Did thee hear all that?" 

" Yes. But he was n't a Nantucket man." 

" No, he was n't a Nantucket man," said Friend 
James, meditatively. *' But though we raise 
some honesty and truthfulness on Nantucket, 
we don't want to set up a monopoly of any of 
God's gifts." 

Relating this anecdote to a friend, of Nan- 
tucket origin, he capped it with another : — 

''When I was a boy, one of my ambitions was 
to play upon the fiddle ; and I once went into 
Friend James's shop to procure a piece of rosin 
for the bow. He said he had some, and mounted 
a stool to find it upon an upper shelf. A small 
bit presented itself, and holding it down toward 
me he inquired, — 

" ' Is this large enough for thee, my son? ' 

" * Oh, yes,' replied I, incautiously; 'I only 
want to rosin my fiddle-bow.' 

" ' Thy fiddle-bow ! ' repeated he, with a look 
I distinctly recall at this moment; and then as 
he replaced the bit of rosin in its corner and 



FRIENDS. 103 

stepped down from the stool, dusting his hands, 
he quietly added, — 

" ' I have no rosin to spare this morning ; but 
I beheve Friend Obed Hussey keeps it.' 

"■ Hating the sin but loving the sinner, you 
see ! I went to Friend Obed Hussey's and got 
my rosin ; but you may be sure I did not men- 
tion its purpose." 

Such and such like were Nantucket men 
of the last generation ; but a change not alto- 
gether owing to the invasion of coofs has passed 
upon the place. The belief, phraseology, dress, 
and character of the Friends, once the rule of 
Nantucket, are fast becoming the exception; the 
young men and maidens, though born \.o yea and 
nay, and to dove-color and chastened demeanor, 
quietly assume the w^orld's garb, manners, and 
morals as soon as they are old enough to choose. 
The two meeting-houses, once filled to overflow- 
ing on every First-day and Fifth-day, are now 
only occupied by a few shadowy figures, who 
sit, the men with hat on head at one side, the 
women at the other, while a few of both sexes 
occupy the high seats facing the rest, in silence, 
except as the Spirit moves one or another to 
some quiet utterance of devotion, — not much 



104 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

differing, after all, from those of other good peo- 
ple, except when sacraments, ceremonies, or 
** paid priests " come in question. Mysie, seeing 
the door open of a Fifth-day, would sometimes 
slip in and sit in the cool, shadowy place, calmed 
by the brooding silence and the spirit of rest, — 
not cheerful exactly, but yet content, the motion- 
less gray figures, with white, set faces and folded 
hands, seeming more like a company of dis- 
embodied spirits, learning that " beyond these 
voices there is peace," than living men and 
women. Once a preacher was there, one sup- 
posed to be always charged with divine grace, 
and ready to utter it, as he did on this occasion ; 
but Mysie for one found the silence more helpful. 
She subsequently asked Friend James how this 
and other preachers went from place to place, 
since salary or stipend of any kind for such ser- 
vices is abhorrent to Friendly tenets, and, as she 
suggested, it is not expected that in these days 
men will, like him of Tarsus, labor with their own 
hands for their own support, and spend the pro- 
ceeds in ministering to the souls of others. 

*' No," replied Friend James, cautiously; ''a 
man may hardly do that in this country. It is 
likely both food and raiment were cheaper in 
Judea than here. Well, if a Friend has a con- 



FRIENDS. 105 

cern of mind to go to a certain place, and is 
likely to do good there, he makes it known, and 
he is generally helped on his way by those who 
have what he has not." 

'' And they give him something to keep his 
family while he is gone, don't they?" 
** Yes, that is sometimes needful, also," 
" Well, that is about all that most clergymen 
out of the cities receive, except that their sala- 
ries are regular sums paid at regular times," sug- 
gested Mysie, and the talk drifted into its usual 
channel. We all know how difficult and how 
exasperating is the effort to make others even 
perceive, much more share, the enjoyments 
which delight us ; and it is very possible that 
few of Mysie's usual associates would have cared 
to sit in that shadowy back room on a bright 
summer morning, watching the mending of 
saucepans or manufacture of porringers, con- 
versing the while in a tentative and desultory 
fashion with the mender and maker, who, truth 
to tell, gave more attention to his work than to 
her ; but she counts those hours among the most 
interesting of Nantucket memorabilia, and never 
once in that back shop encountered the dreary, 
deadly weight of boredom so apt to sit enthroned 
in the correctest drawing-rooms. 



I06 NANTUCKET SCRAPS, 

^^ Apres nous la deluge'^ is undoubtedly a sel- 
fish and cynical utterance, and yet one may 
perhaps be pardoned some self-gratulation in 
having fallen upon even the latter days and last 
men of the epoch of individualism so rapidly 
passing away. This is the age of machinery ; 
and not our clothes and furniture only, but our 
manners, speech, modes of thought, and occupa- 
tions are moulded more or less after one model, 
turned out by the thousand instead of by the unit, 
and yet only one unit repeated a thousand times 
in the whole invoice. Seven hundred years ago, 
Bernard de Morlaix, sang " The time is waxing 
late;" but the salt had not lost its savor in his 
day as in ours, and the weariness of which Sol- 
omon as well as the great Cluniac complained 
had not reached the dead level of to-day, or the 
deader level toward which it is sinking. Cour- 
age, mon iconoclaste ! The universal language, 
universal costume, universal government and 
currency are hastening toward us, or we toward 
them ; and the day is not far distant when a 
man shall gape in Ispahan or Siberia precisely 
as he does in Boston or Natchez, and find pre- 
cisely the same cause to do so, and the same 
solace for doing so. 



SCRAP VIII. 



LILIAN AND SEVEN SLIARKS. 



** 'P^^^HERE are you going to take us to-day, 

jijf^ijl young woman?" inquired the pater 

'^^^""^^ familias one morning, seizing Blanche 

by the magnificent Marguerite braid hanging 

down her back. 

*' I am so glad you thought to inquire before 
we started," replied she, with the demure drollery 
which was one of her pretty ways. '*You are 
going to Wauwinet on the yacht 'Lilian' at 
nine o'clock. You will, won't you ? Say yes ! 
ah, please ! " suddenly changing from a little 
queen to a coaxing child. 

" Why, of course ; how could I say anything 
else, having received my orders?" responded 
papa, in mock humility ; and presently a very 
merry party, including the sisters, with faithful 
Harry in attendance, the senor, senora, the nino 
and nina, with Mysie, went trooping down to the 
steamboat wharf, beside which lay a trim white 
yacht with *' Lilian " painted at the stern, and a 



I08 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

huge L evolving itself from the folds of the 
mainsail creeping up the mast under the united 
efforts of the captain and crew. 

*' Going to Wauwinet? Just on time," cried 
the captain cheerily ; and as the crew also looked 
round with a cheerful smile, and moved his pea- 
jacket so that the ladies might conveniently 
step down upon the thwart, the passengers felt 
that the freedom of the boat was extended to 
them, and clambered or bounded as the case 
might be from the wharf to the thwart, select- 
ing their seats as they were more or less boat- 
wise. One other individual appeared just as 
the "■ Lilian " was leaving the wharf, — a gentle- 
man wearing a very new silk hat, a very cut- 
away plaid coat, a diamond ring, and mourning 
finger-nails, a breast-pin, and a loud laugh. He 
was very sociable, and presently informed the 
company that he was a grocer's drummer, and 
had sold one forgets how many barrels of sugar 
and boxes of nutmegs upon Nantucket already. 
Having laid this solid foundation of respectabil- 
ity, he proceeded to domestic details, and gave 
some very improving sketches of his dealings 
with his mother-in-law, whom he seemed to have 
under excellent discipline, although one could 



''LILIAN'' AXD SEVEN SHARK'S. IO9 

not but suspect that the mother-in-law's daugh- 
ter had proved a handful, and that the drummer 
was not averse to an occasional leave of absence 
from home. One circumstance supporting this 
theory was the insane eagerness this person dis- 
played to kill something, anything in fact. If a 
gull flew within range he loudly bewailed him- 
self that he had not a gun, although one must 
doubt the danger to the gull, had the best of 
weapons been at hand ; a little beetle ran across 
the deck, and our friend's splay foot hastened to 
crush it, but fortunately a friendly crack offered 
timely refuge. At last, however, as the ** Lilian " 
flew before a westerly wind, the joyous waves 
lapping her sides and sending little jets of spray 
over the forward deck, a demon whispered ''blue- 
fish " to the man of nutmegs, who at once de- 
manded of the crew tackle, an old hat and an 
oilcloth coat; the good-natured crew at once 
produced all these requisites, and ten minutes 
later, with much outcry, and self-gratulation, 
and stamping about the deck, our friend began 
hauhng upon his line, evidently meeting with 
considerable resistance. 

" When he shall try to pull thee out, 
God give thee strength, O gentle trout, 
To pull the rascal in ! " 



no NA NTUCKE T SCR A PS. 

murmured Mysie ; but the charitable wish was 
not fulfilled, and the beautiful creature presently 
lay dying at her feet, and, all his beauty lost in 
torment and death, was thrust into a bucket and 
out of sight. No doubt the necessity exists that 
man's life should be sustained by violently rob- 
bing the lower animals of theirs ; but why this 
hideous necessity should be ranked as a pleas- 
ure, a social amusement, and a recreation, it 
is hard to understand. Or if the rule holds 
good in one instance, why not in all? If it is 
delightful for a party of men and women count- 
ing themselves refined, tender-hearted, gentle, 
and merciful, to make a party to go and kill 
fish, birds, or deer, why not go to see oxen and 
pigs and sheep slain, or slay them with their 
own hands? Or why not revive Tyburn and 
'the Place de la Greve, and make parties to the 
hanging or burning of our criminals? The fish, 
the bird, the deer, die to support men's lives ; 
the murderer is executed to protect them : cruel 
necessities both, and both involving depriving 
the victim of the life which God gave and we 
can by no possibility replace. So be it, if it is 
right in the one case and in the other ; but as it 
is not the custom of civilization to dance around 



'' LILIAN'' AND SEVEN SHARKS. HI 

its culprits, hacking them to pieces by inches 
and gloating over their agonies, why turn the 
slaying of our food into a similar amusement? 

From which digression the practical mind will 
deduce two facts : there is excellent fishing of 
several varieties in Nantucket waters ; and My- 
sie declines all invitations to go fishing. 

A legend of the island relates that a dying 
Indian seer, lamenting over the decay of his 
race, prophesied, that, as a sort of compensatory 
justice, they should, in disappearing, carry the 
blue-fish with them, perhaps to stock the waters 
of the Happy Hunting-Ground. Somewhat 
remarkably, the bluefish verified this prophecy ; 
and when Abram Quary, the last man with 
Indian blood in his veins, died, in 1855, not a 
bluefish was to be caught within ten miles of 
Nantucket. The curse was, however, of limited 
charter ; and after twenty years or so the blue- 
fish returned in great numbers, and are one of 
the principal dishes of the Nantucket tea-table 
to-day. 

A little hour brought the ''Lilian" to Wauwi- 
net, represented to the ignorant eyes of a " stran- 
ger " by a long wooden pier, and a gravelly bank 
gradually rising to a slight altitude whereon is 



112 j^A NTUCKE T SCR A PS. 

built a'unique house of entertainment, consisting 
of a small dwelling with a large pavilion an- 
nexed. This pavilion is open on three sides in 
fine weather, but is provided with a series of 
shutters swung at the top to staples driven into 
the cornice ; m winter, or in stormy weather, or at 
night, these are lowered and made fast upon the 
inside, but at other times are swung up to the 
ceiling, where they lie flat, and offer a novel sort 
of decorative effect. The idea is not peculiar to 
Wauwinet, but was prevalent throughout Nan- 
tucket in primitive times, when the population 
was denser and the manners franker than now. 
In one house, in especial, we noticed in the beam 
traversing the ceiling of the long, low sitting- 
room a number of hooks, and were informed by 
the interesting old lady whose life has serenely 
passed within those walls, that, in the former days, 
a partition of thin boards in sections, or a leathern 
curtain, was hung across the room at night, con- 
verting half into a sleeping room. The pavilion 
at Wauwinet is furnished with tables, chairs, 
castors, and bills of fare suggestive of clams, 
lobsters, fish, and at dinner-time lamb, which 
animal should, we think, be ranked among the 
amphibia, from its universality at the sea-shore. 



''LILIAN'' AND SEVEA^ SHARA'S. 113 

Nobody however, requiring refreshment except 
the drummer, who was last seen consuming lager 
beer, oysters, and a cigar, the party went through 
the pavilion, and taking a winding path across the 
beach grass, crossed the narrow neck of land, or 
rather sand, dividing the harbor of Nantucket 
from the open sea. This harbor, six or seven 
miles in length, is in itself a magnificent sailing 
ground, giving opportunity in rough weather for 
sea-sickness, shipwreck, fishing, even for whales 
and sharks in one or two instances, and all the 
other amenities of marine amusement ; but when 
one crosses the " Haul-over," as this neck is 
called, for the simple reason that boatmen wish- 
ing to pass from the harbor to the open sea haul 
their boats over the few rods of sand intervening 
at this point, one finds Old Ocean in his sterner 
and grander moods awaiting one with tumult 
of surf, and strong, salt wind, and the blank, 
limitless expanse of water and sky pecuhar to 
the eastern and southern shores of this perilous 
land. Far to the right rises Sankaty Head, 
eighty-five feet above the level of the sea, its 
summit crowned by a light-house, and the little 
hamlet of Ouidnet and Sachacha Pond at its 
feet. Two or three little boats were dodging 



1 1 4 NANTUCKE T SCRAPS. 

their way in, now trusting themselves to the crest 
of a roller, now backing and holding off for 
another friendly lift. Finding the right moment, 
they at last came sliding up the beach, the fish- 
ermen tumbling over the sides, and hauling their 
little craft high and dry with the celerity and con- 
fidence of long practice. Two or three male 
passengers appeared, and all with much excite- 
ment and noise proceeded to land the horrible 
freight of sharks they had brought back, this 
species of game being very abundant in this 
precise locality. Seven of the ugly creatures _ 
were dragged out upon the beach and laid side 
by side, like the dead sailors of the Ancient 
Mariner's vision ; then the proprietors casting 
invitatory glances at the " Lilian's " party, they 
proceeded to inspect the prize, the men poking 
them with their feet, prying open their mouths, 
and disputing over their weight and size as men 
always do on such occasions, and the women ut- 
tering various dainty exclamations of horror and 
astonishment, ending generally with a desire 
more or less pronounced to possess some of 
the teeth, which are often mounted in gold and 
worn as ornaments. We all know how fashion, 
like history, repeats herself, and undoubtedly 



''LILIAN'' AND SEVEN SHARKS. Il5 

the brown beauties of Nantucket two or three 
hundred years ago also begged sharks' teeth for 
ornaments, only, with the noble simplicity of the 
savage, they thrust them through the flesh direct, 
without the intervention of a gold wire. On the 
inner curve of the Haul-over are bathing-houses, 
and the water is said to be warm and clean ; but 
none of the Lilians made proof of it on this 
occasion, preferring to saunter or sit upon the 
fine dry sand and look at the sea and sky, tell 
each other long dreamy stories and theories, or 
simply gaze at the long rollers sliding up the 
sand and breaking at their feet, *' soft as carded 
wool," laughing and clapping their hands in 
playful mischief if a daring foot or the hem of a 
garment Were overtaken by their swift pursuit, 
— and yet with an arriere-pensee in all their mirth 
reminding one of crushing blows, and blinding 
spray, and shrieking wind, and drowning men. 

"Rule the sea," indeed! Oh, no, Britannia; 
neither you nor the Bird of Freedom, nor any 
power of man, does more than toy with the mon- 
ster's mane when he is in good humor. Let him 
growl, or shake his head, or show his teeth, and 
lion and eagle alike must fly or be devoured. 
Perhaps one reason we love the sea so much is 



1 1 6 NANTUCKE T SCR A PS. 

the instinct of hero-worship, — the attraction to 
something stronger than ourselves, — so deeply 
implanted in human nature. 

The sound of an impertinent little steam-whis- 
tle drifting across the hummocks of the Haul- 
over announced the departure of the tiny steam- 
boat also plying between town and Wauwinet, 
and the Lilians, slowly gathering themselves and 
impedimenta from the sands, returned to the 
wharf in time to see the tug get herself away with 
much shrieking, ringing, and whistling ; while the 
** Lilian," w^iite, serene, and graceful, laid her 
pretty head to the open sea and floated tran- 
quilly out upon its breast, — the two reminding 
one of a fussy old dowager and a charming 
young girl entering an august assembly. The 
only blot upon the gay homeward voyage was, 
that the man of spices and bluefish had decided 
to take the steamer back to town. This grief 
was, however, partially assuaged by Captain 
Smalley, who, leaving the helm in charge of the 
crew, entertained his passengers with sea-stories 
and Nantucket reminiscences full of the briny 
flavor and sparkling sunlight with which the hour 
and the scene brimmed over. 

Approaching the town from the water, one 



''LILIAN'' AND SEVEN SHARKS. 11/ 

cannot fail to be impressed with its apparent size 
and importance. A stranger knowing nothing 
of the place would take it for a city of consid- 
erable extent, instead of a town never reaching 
a census of ten thousand souls in its palmiest 
days, and now numbering only about three thou- 
sand. One reason of this deceptiveness is that 
every public building is so placed as to make a 
feature in the picture. The square crenellated 
belfry of the North Meeting-house shows in its 
gray paint as the granite tower of a cathedral ; 
the gilded dome of the Unitarian steeple glitters 
in the sunshine as if a veritable Ophir lay be- 
neath ; the High-School house, appropriately 
set upon the highest hillock in town, shows up 
like a city hall of whitest marble ; the many 
wharves step bravely out into the harbor in a 
grim dance of death, while the great closed ware- 
houses at their heads, once filled with oil and 
candles, or provisions for the whaling vessels 
erewhile crowding these empty docks, look like 
the closed mausoleums of dead and buried pros- 
perity. Nor must one forget the most impres- 
sive dwelling-house in town, — a large and pala- 
tial residence standing in its own grounds, and 
flashing back the sunlight from unnumbered 



Il8 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

windows ; for this is the Poor-house, where be- 
nevolent housewives send dainties to feed the 
occasional pauper, young ladies go to read to 
him if he falls ill, and the grave and kindly tax- 
payers are always ready to hold meetings for 
the amelioration of his exceptionally happy lot. 
Here, only a few months since, lived and died a 
delightful old sailor named Robert Ratliff, who 
made the voyage to St. Helena with the captive 
emperor of the French, and spoke of him with 
more generosity and fairness than England's 
great poet exhibited in his taunting lines : — 

" But yesterday a king, 

And set with kings to strive ; 
And now thou art a nameless thing, 
So abject, yet alive." 

At the other wing of the town lies the Cliff, a 
sand-bank some forty feet in height; and upon 
its crest stand a number of summer cottages 
whither the Nantucket gentry have been in the 
habit of retreating during the summer months, 
following the great law of change laid down by a 
small boy of our acquaintance, who, looking dis- 
contentedly out of the window on a rainy day, 
remarked, — 

" Mamma, I wish we 'd move." 



''LILIAN'' AND SEVEN SHARKS. IIQ 

" Move, child ! what for? Where do you want 
to move to?" inquired mamma. 

'' Oh, I don't care ; but I wish we 'd move 
some place, if it was only next house." 

But in the new order of things dawning upon 
the shores of Nantucket, the Cliff has been seized 
upon by *' strangers," who are putting up the 
regulation seaside villa in great numbers ; and, 
out of compliment to the aesthetic taste of the 
day, painting it deep-red, sunflower-yellov/, post- 
man's-blue, or the deepest and muddiest choco- 
late to be bought for money. The most imposing 
of these novelties is a really stately house built 
by a celebrated New York lawyer. One droll 
revenge of Nature upon these invaders of her 
especial domain is the shutting off the view of 
herself they have been at such pains to secure, 
by turning their fine plate-glass windows into 
ground-glass, — an operation performed with 
great celerity by the combined action of fine 
sand, high winds, and constant moisture of spray 
and fog. The wise man does not dispute with 
Nature, but utilizes her; and what a situation 
this cliff would be for a blind asylum, a nunnery, 
or a young ladies' seminary ! We present the 
suggestion gratuitously to the world. Another 



120 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

little eccentricity of the breezes sweeping these 
cliff estates is the blowing away of the gardens 
attempted by the proprietors ; the only way to 
keep a cuticle of soil upon the sand composing 
this eminence is to plant it with beach-grass ; 
and however appropriate to the environs of a 
villa, beds of gladioli, pelargonium, and begonias 
may be, they do not answer the purpose, or in 
any sense hold their own before the piping winds 
which tear the poor things up by the roots, bury 
them in sand, and shriek exultingly upon their 
way. Beyond the Cliff and the villas stands a 
peculiar structure, — more like an immense 
washing-tub upon a trestle than anything else, 

— furnishing at once a subject of conversation 
to the approaching stranger and a handsome 
finish to the view of Nantucket at this western 
end of the amphitheatre. This is the Reservoir, 

— for Nantucket has its aqueduct as well as 
Rome, New York, London, and some other 
places, and like them embellishes the water- 
works in its own way ; this reservoir for instance 
being painted of a very charming shade of red 
and placed close by Captain John Gardner's 
grave, makes a harmonious link between past 
and present, and a good terminus to a drive or 



''LILIAN'' AND SEVEN SHARKS. 12 1 

walk. Keeping all these points in view, and add- 
ing a liberal allowance of sky, water, sand, and 
retreating moors as background, one under- 
stands that Nantucket makes upon the mind of 
its approaching visitor the impression of a large 
place, — maritime, but also civic in its impor- 
tance, — a juvenile Amsterdam or Venice per- 
haps ; and one of the most frequent remarks 
heard upon the deck of the incoming steamboat 
is, "Why, I didn't know it was so much of a 
place." A few days of rambling about the town, 
however, places things upon a more comfortable 
and home-like footing ; and the traveller having 
by cautious inquiries satisfied himself that there 
are no cathedrals, maisons d'or, town halls, pic- 
ture galleries, or places where Washington or 
Franklin once sat down and wiped their brows, 
— nothing in short that he is in any way bound 
to know, or argue himself unknown, — begins to 
enjoy pottering about the quiet old streets, the 
deserted wharves, and quaint burying-grounds, 
doing nothing, seeing nothing, and lacking noth- 
ing, in a manner impossible to the show-places 
of earth. Hector St. John and Mysie perfectly 
agree in their appreciation of this hidden charm, 
although, as he pithily remarks, — 



122 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

" Such an island, inhabited as I have described, is 
not the place where gay travellers should resort in order 
to enjoy that variety of pleasures the more splendid 
towns of this continent afford." 

One of Mysie's favorite haunts was the shore- 
district lying at the eastern end of the town, a 
network of blind lanes, narrow crooked streets, 
old buildings and unexpected situations, — such 
as going in at one end of a lane apparently level 
and having to climb a steep flight of steps to 
reach the house and garden plots abutting upon 
it, and then to descend not only these but a 
second series of steps and a precipitous cobbled 
gutter to arrive at the other end. A bluff called 
Quanaty Hill, symmetrically balancing the Cliff 
at the other end of the town, once stood here, 
but a hundred and fifty years ago was dug away 
to make room at the water-side for the then grow- 
ing maritime quarter. There seems, however, 
to have been no particular limit to the levelling 
process, and in some places the streets with their 
buildings, and especially the summer-houses or 
lookout places in which sea-faring people natur- 
ally delight, suddenly appear above the heads of 
passengers in the level ways below, giving one 
the bewildering sensation of being in a two- 



''LILIAN'' AND SEVEN SHARKS. 1 23 

story town, — common enough abroad, but 
not so frequent in our own practical land. 
The nomenclature of these streets is peculiar, 
being sometimes descriptive, — as New Dollar 
Lane, Step Lane, Candle Street, Stone Alley, 
and Try Works Lane; complimentary, as Pleas- 
ant and Fair Streets ; named after the old fam- 
ilies, — as Gardner Street, Hammatt's Corner, 
etc. ; or adopted from the names of favorite 
vessels, — as Vestal Street, Brothers Lane, and 
Wasp Alley. Some of these more peculiar 
titles have suffered change, — as when the senor 
took Mysie to see Teaser Lane, and found a 
gilt sign-board proclaiming the thoroughfare 
to be Lyon Street. 

"Too bad, too bad ! " m.uttered the senor, really 
annoyed ; *' and the old Teaser Meeting-house 
gone too! That's where it stood." And he 
pointed to a dismal cellar-hole full of thistles 
and old tin-kettles, a sight but too common in 
Nantucket, where the houses are almost as peri- 
patetic as in Cheyenne, the alternative name 
of which place need not be more particularly 
mentioned here. 

"And why Teaser Meeting-house?" asked 
Mysie, respectfully contemplating the cellar- 



124 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

hole. " And why are you distressed at its dis- 
appearance? " 

" Oh, it was one of the old landmarks ; and as 
for the name, — * all of which I knew and part of 
which I was,' — it came about in this way. The 
Methodists had built a new meeting-house, and 
wanted to dedicate it; but their ideas of how 
such matters should be conducted being a little 
mixed, they proceeded about as they would to 
launch and christen a new whaler, and it was 
considered appropriate in either case to hoist 
the national flag. I don't remember whether 
they fired a gun and broke a bottle of spirit or 
not; but when it came to the flag question, it 
was discovered that my uncle was the only man 
in town possessing a United States ensign, and 
I, standing by to listen to the discussion, was 
despatched to borrow it for the occasion. Now 
my uncle was not a Methodist, and he was a 
wag; so when I made known the petition he 
replied, — 

" * Oh, I'll lend them a flag, of course; but 
one is as good as another : take this.' 

" Now * this ' was the ensign of the brig 
* Teaser,' and had that name upon it in letters 
a foot long or so, — bright yellow letters on a 



''LILIAN'' AND SEVEN SHARKS. 1 25 

red ground ; real Spanish colors, by the way. 
Well, I took the flag, rolled up as it was, and 
brought it up here, obeying my uncle's direc- 
tions in not letting it out of my hands, until at 
the proper moment it was hauled to the peak, 
and, as the newspapers say, 'flung to the breeze.' 
You can imagine the sensation ! The Methodists 
had partly a mind to be mad about it ; but, after 
all, what harm was done? So they laughed in- 
stead ; and all the town laughed with them, and 
at them. They left the flag up until sunset. 
And from that day this was regularly called 
the Teaser Meeting-house, and this lane was 
Teaser Lane; and I don't believe in changing 
things." 

At this juncture a door quietly opened close 
behind the speakers, and a woman clothed upon 
with a sun-bonnet eff"ectually hiding her face, as 
a plaid shawl shrouded her figure, came out 
into the little garden between the house and the 
street. In her hand she carried a tin can of 
water, which she proceeded to pour around 
two or three melancholy little plants feebly 
struggling against sand and wind. In spite of 
this occupation it was, however, supposable that 
she had come to assist at the conversation and 



126 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

the inspection of the cellar-hole ; and the senor 
suavely greeting her, inquired, — 

" What is the name of this street, madam? " 

*' Lyon Street. You might read it at the 
corner," replied the dame, never raising her 
face, which throughout the interview remained 
as hidden as that of the Dweller upon the 
Threshold. 

" Lyon Street? " repeated the senor. " Did it 
ever have any other name? " 

" Not as I know of," replied the Dweller, 
curtly. 

** Was n't there a place named Teaser Lane 
round here, somewhere? It seems to me I 
remember it when I was a boy." 

" Humph ! If you was a boy here, you know 
well enough that this was Teaser Lane, and over 
there was the Teaser Meeting-house, moved 
away this ten year. I guess you know as much 
about it as I do, and don't need to ask no 
questions." 

With this valedictory, she passed within the 
threshold and disappeared. 

" Now I wonder," said the senor pensively, as 
he turned away, '* if she is the survivor of those 
Methodists, and remembers me?" 



''LILIAN'' AND SEVEN SHARKS. 12/ 

" The evil that men do lives after them," 

quoted Mysie, with due solemnity: and so in the 
westering light they fared homeward through 
steep, quaint Orange Street. 




SCRAP IX. 



A SQUANTUM. 



g^^^^lHAT Is a ' squantum '? " inquired My- 

W^'MlM ^^^' hurling the question into the midst 

""^^^••^^"-^^ i of the group chatting in the twihght 
upon the steps and in the doorway of their 
pleasant caravansary. 

Such a pause ensued as when Discordia, 
appearing at the marriage feast of Peleus, flung 
her apple upon the board; only, following the 
course of the ages, the call now was for the wisest 
instead of the fairest. 

*' A ' squantum ' ! " repeated Rose and Blanche, 
softly ; " why, what is a * squantum,' to be sure? " 

" The etymology of the word suggests the 
noble savage," quoth Harry, solemnly. 

*' I don't know what it means," said the big- 
gest and bravest man in presence. 

''Come, senor; of course you know! " said 
Mysie. '* What is a ' squantum ' ? " 

"A 'squantum' used, in the Golden Age," 



A SQUANTUM. 1 29 

replied the seiior, retrospectively, *' to mean a 
party of merry lads and lasses, Cap'n Burgess's 
boat, a bushel of clams, several chickens, a lot 
of roasting-ears of Indian corn, potatoes, hard 
tack, cold coffee, luncheon baskets crammed 
with goodies, ten hours' sail more or less, and a 
great deal of laughter, not to say flirtation." 

" That sounds very nice," exclaimed Rose, 
Blanche, and Harry in a breath. ** Let 's have 
one ! " 

'' That was in the Golden Age," repeated My- 
sie. " Well, now that we have arrived at the — 
let us say, type-metal age — " 

" Typical is better," interpolated the pater 
faniilias. 

" Now that most of this fair company have 
arrived at the typical age," amended Mysie, 
** what will a ' squantum ' mean for us? I ask, 
because we are to be invited to one to-morrow." 

A second silence fell upon the company, most 
of whom were probably considering of what their 
own age was typical. The senor was the first to 
recover himself. 

'* Oh, for us," said he cheerily, '* it ought to 
mean considerable comfort in the arrangements ; 
a very cautious partaking of the clams, with a 

9 



I30 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

glass of wine afterward ; a good deal of very 
improving conversation, not quite so much 
laughter as of old, an early bed, and consider- 
able rest next day." 

*' And that 's what typical means," sighed 
Mysie. ''Well, as I said, I have private and 
reliable information that we are to be invited 
to a * squantum ' to-morrow at Surf Side on 
the South Shore, and that we are to meet the 
very elite of the island, — an honor I espe- 
cially desire, and which is not easily attainable 
for strangers in these days." 

" There, again ! " said the senor. " We did n't 
use in the Golden Age to have any elite, or to 
think anything about whom we were to meet, 
except, of course, * the fair, the inexpressive 
she ' of the moment." 

" It is quite as well to lay aside childish things 
sometime or other," remarked the senora. 

*' But, my dear, I went to a good many * squan- 
tums ' with you in those days," replied her hus- 
band. 

Industrious inquiries in other directions 
evolved the further information that " squan- 
tum " means a clam-bake, with the addition of a 
picnic of less substantial dainties ; that the name 



A S QUANTUM. 13 I 

was borrowed from either a special point of the 
Coatue beach frequented for this purpose by 
century-dead Nantucketers, or from an old In- 
dian living in that vicinity and famous for his 
skill in the preparation of the clams and their 
adjuncts. Everybody knows the modus operandi 
of a clam-bake, but it shall be here set down 
according to the old squantum method. 

A hole large enough to contain a cask is dug 
in the sand upon the beach, and paved with 
cobble-stones ; upon them is built a substantial 
fire of drift-wood, — this sort of fuel imparting 
a picturesque flavor to the viands ; when the 
stones are red-hot all through, and the fire 
burned out, a quantity of wet seaweed is thrown 
in, and upon it is emptied a bushel or more of 
clams dug within the hour; upon these are laid 
several chickens cut open as if to broil, some 
potatoes pared and cut in halves, and some ears 
of green corn in the husk ; upon these again is 
laid more seaweed, and the top is finished ofi" 
with an old sail or some boards, — anything to 
keep in the steam plentifully arising. An hour 
or so is ample for the cooking of this olla po- 
driduy and during that time the feminine por- 
tion of the company have arranged either a 



132 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

table or a level spot of clean sand covered with 
a cloth, whereon is spread the variety of biscuit, 
cakes, pies, and sweeties for which Nantucket 
was famous in the Golden Age, — although now 
the ladies are generally too much engrossed in 
discussing the rights of man (including woman) 
and the last new thing in metaphysics, to have 
much time to spare for the mysteries of the 
culinary art. But in the Golden Age there was 
much innocent rivalry in the manufacture of all 
sorts of toothsome dainties ; and the result was 
highly pleasing, no doubt, to the gallant young 
fellows who living four fifths of their lives at sea 
were all ready, during the fifth spent on shore, 
to solace the inner man appreciatively. 

Nowadays there is, to be sure, less motive for 
the preparation of those compensatory dainties, 
since the men no longer go to sea, and conse- 
quently no longer come home again ; but in fact 
there are no longer any men upon Nantucket 
except the veterans, who assemble in the Cap'n's 
Room day by day to fight over their old battles 
wnth whale and iceberg, the few tradespeople, 
and the skippers of the boats, who in winter 
generally go to the Banks cod-fishing. But the 
young men, the bone and sinew of the land, 



A S QUANTUM. 133 

who should be the hope of its future and the 
strength of its present, are gone. Brave fel- 
lows ! their bones lie upon many a Southern 
battle-field, in many an ocean depth, both North 
and South ; for when the country called for vol- 
unteers to give their lives for her life and for her 
honor, this little island responded with a gen- 
erous alacrity that left her drained of men and 
means, and before peace was declared sent al- 
most every family into mourning. In i860 the 
population was 6,094, and in 1870, 4,123; and 
of those two thousand souls a large proportion 
might have claimed the record, — 

" Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." 

But other causes have co-operated with the 
war to drain away the men of Nantucket. The 
rumor of a new Golconda in California seems to 
have proved a sort of intoxication to this hardy 
and fearless people, and literally thousands of 
Nantucket men flocked to Eldorado, as miners, 
freighters, tradesmen : in fact, distributing them- 
selves through every channel of industry and 
money-making, some of them remaining there, 
a few returning, and the larger part faring still 
farther a-field. Another great draught upon 



134 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

Nantucket has been the call for men to *' go 
down to the sea in ships" belonging to almost 
every nation under the sun ; and although when 
sailing out of Nantucket they naturally returned 
thither, even if at long intervals and for brief 
spaces, when hailing from a foreign port they 
have no such obligation, and probably form ties 
as binding as those at home, wherever they may 
chance to be. 

But the Squantum ! the Squantum ! 

The funny little railroad, hardly more than a 
tramway, was on this occasion to answer instead 
of a boat ; and the lovely South Shore was con- 
sidered more convenient for typical people than 
Coatue, Tuckernuck, Pocomo, and the other 
points selected by the daring and tireless ad- 
venturers of the Golden Age. So, on a glori- 
ous summer afternoon, Dionis, with a shriek of 
derisive laughter, deposited some fifty persons 
among the lumber of the incipient Station, 
Rink, and Refreshment House, and immediately 
backed herself to Nantucket, having no facilities 
for turning round, leaving the Squantum to its 
fate. It seemed a pleasant and eke a comfort- 
able one, for there was a tent with tables and 
benches, instead of the primitive arrangement of 



A SQUANTUM. 135 

seats upon the sand, shingles for plates, and 
fingers for forks, incident to the good old times. 
Also there were otlier benches upon the brow of 
the cliff, wherefrom to gaze upon the view, and 
there was the broad, level beach, and the steps 
leading down to it. At a little distance was a 
smoking and steaming mound, which a man w^as 
just covering with boards, — and therein lay the 
Hamlet of the play. Prince Clam himself. 

The company was a selected one, intended by 
the projector of the squantum, himself a literary 
man, to collect what our modern slang calls the 
"culture" of Nantucket in one body, and present 
thereto a person who had expressed to him the 
wish to meet and become acquainted with that 
body. 

If one dared digress again so soon, there is a 
great temptation in this word " culture," and its 
root, cult and cultus (that is to say, worship), and 
the closer than etymological mingling of root 
and derivative in the present exaltation of intel- 
lect above faith ; but manfully resisting the 
temptation, we go on to say that Nantucket is a 
remarkable place in many respects, but in noth- 
ing more remarkable than in the high standard 
of ^«//-ivated intellect set up and fully reached 



13^ NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

by a large proportion of the inhabitants. And 
when one in speaking of Nantucket says ''inhabi- 
tants," one necessarily means women ; for in this 
assemblage of fifty persons there were not more 
than ten men, and of these the larger part were 
" strangers." Everybody knew everybody, and 
everybody came and spoke to the visitor, with a 
cordial and easy grace savoring both of the 
primitive hospitality of the island, especially in 
an al fresco entertainment like this, and of that 
emancipation of manner springing not only from 
the habit of society, but from a large and varied 
study of mankind through literature and literary 
association. A person whose mind habitually 
deals with the stars (and Miss Maria Mitchell is 
Nantucket born, and includes her native island 
in her yearly orbit), or with the systems of the 
most advanced thinkers of the day (and Mill, 
Hegel, Emerson, and Carlyle are household 
words on Nantucket), or who reads the foreign 
and domestic newspapers, and studies the poli- 
tics of the world, and knows just what Chili is 
going to do, and where the American navy is, 
and what is the best course to pursue with the 
Nihilists, and how soon there will be an Imperial 
reaction in France, and whether the '' Sick Man" 



A SQUANTUM. 137 

will die or get well, and who beat in Egypt, and 
who inflicted the blow upon William Patterson, 

— a person who knows all this, we say, is not 
awkward or silent in any society, but having the 
courage of her opinions, has also that ease and 
suavity which nothing bestows more fully than 
courage and knowledge combined. Most of the 
party were naturally of, or approaching, the typ- 
ical age ; but there were a few specimens of la 
jeunesse doree besides Rose, Blanche, and Harry, 

— especially two pretty, graceful maidens, un- 
spoiled by the world, and fresh as the breeze 
tinting their cheeks, who came and bade the 
stranger welcome to Nantucket, with a simple 
ease of manner and sincerity of tone seldom 
found in city drawing-rooms. A good many of 
the older women were comely in a maturer way ; 
and in fact there is something wonderfully pre- 
servative in plenty of fresh air (especially if it is 
salt as well as fresh), good consciences, early 
hours, and activity of body and mind. Mysie, 
looking and listening through two or three 
hours, felt that this little barren island had pro- 
duced a people of its own, and one of which 
New England may be proud and fond. Not 
only may she boast that throughout the annals 



138 NA NTUCKE T SCR A PS. 

of this place the men have been proved brave 
and the women pure, but that on these soHd 
foundation stones has been raised a fair column, 
whose only blemish is that it is finished with the 
globe and not with the cross. 

" The Squantum is ready ! " gravely an- 
nounced the official presiding over the mound 
of Hamlet, and at the word everybody gathered 
about the board (literally the board) under the 
tent, and presently the clams were presented hot 
and hot, each one lying cosily in a bath of his 
own juices, his lower shell offering a sufficient 
dish, his upper one coyly ajar that one might 
see the treasure within. Now Mysie had gone 
to the squantum oppressed with at least one 
silent terror weighing upon her spirits, and this 
was that she would be obliged in courtesy to 
taste the clams in spite of a very pronounced 
aversion to that '' festive bivalve." But once 
more virtue brought its own reward; a cour- 
teous neighbor showed her how the casket was 
most judiciously opened, and assured her that 
although forks were permitted, fingers were of 
older date and of greater virtue. The neophyte 
obeyed, took up the morsel in her fingers, put 
it in her mouth, and closed her eyes lest the 



A S QUANTUM. 139 

expected distaste should be too apparent. But 
what ! Surely this luscious, savory morsel melt- 
ing upon one's palate, and conveying an essence- 
of-ocean flavor not to be described, was not a 
clam ! This octave note of the song of the 
senses chanted by summer sky and weltering sea 
and fanning breeze and languorous sunshine, 
and all the physical joy of health. Nature, and 
idlesse, — ah, yes, these all were consummated 
in the flavor of that first ideal clam ! Such a 
surprise is not to be repeated, and Mysie ate 
no more, lest the demon of disillusionment 
should lurk within the shell ; but she did eat the 
one, and she knows the gastronomic climax of 
a squantum, and can most earnestly recommend 
it to her friends. 

The noble rage of hunger appeased, a few 
persons, both men and women, made little in- 
formal speeches, generally humorous, — as when 
the young lady at present filling the pulpit of 
the North Church said pensively, that no poet 
but Shelley could be appropriately quoted just 
now, adding a personal boii mot addressed to 
the stranger, both funny and complimentary. 
The author of " Rosedale," so happily success- 
ful both as novelist and journalist, was present, 



140 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

a man of Nantucket lineage and birth, and cos- 
mopolitan training, who made a witty speech at 
the time, and proved most agreeable in conver- 
sation afterward. Mysie's neighbor, — she who 
had so deftly opened clams and good-humoredly 
encouraged the neophyte, — was called upon, 
and in a few terse, strong sentences showed quite 
another side of character from the playful ease 
appropriate to the feast ; dealing now with the 
vexed question of woman's claim to the same 
part as man in the world's fight, and showing an 
energy and decision in the matter suggestive of 
the great probability of her gaining whatever 
position she aimed at. 

When she sat down, Mysie timidly asked a 
question about some point of which she had 
never heard before. It was courteously ex- 
plained, and then came the question, — 

'' Don't you read the newspapers?" 

** Very seldom," replied Mysie, with contri- 
tion. 

" But how then do you keep yourself informed 
of the movements of the age, in our own and 
other countries?" was the severe query. 

*' I don't," replied Mysie, yet more contritely; 
and perceived that she was set down as one 



A SQUANTUM. 14I 

of those flies upon the wheel of Progress who, 
however minutely, retard its victorious course 
toward that Utopia wherein woman is to be 
enfranchised, cultured, made by some mysteri- 
ous process free of those physical disabilities at 
present limiting her efforts, and, miraculously 
endowed with ability to carry Adam's burden as 
well as Eve's, to find time for double "the work 
of which the folk-song says, — 

" Man may work from sun to sun, 
But woman's work is never done." 

Probably while the world endures, women will 
love, marry, bear children, tend them, guide 
the house, and even to old age remain the 
central point, the equilibrium, of the home. 
One does not very well see how, amidst these 
engrossing duties and joys, the woman is also 
to read Political Economy, study and weigh the 
lives of public men, inform herself of the hidden 
mysteries of diplomacy at home and abroad, 
study tariffs, currency, prohibitory laws, and the 
like, without all which knowledge neither man 
nor woman is fit to take part in the councils of 
the nation, or to throw an intelligent vote. And 
if, endowed with superhuman energy and ability, 



142 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

she does all this without leaving her own work 
undone, and finds in some great crisis that she has 
arrived at opposite conclusions to those of the 
man of her heart or the son of her bosom, will 
she go to the polls and glare fiercely in the eyes 
of her beloved as she throws the vote neutraliz- 
ing his? Or if, as is more likely, the stronger 
nature dominates the weaker or more loving, can 
she be sure that if she prevails, she will prove 
in the end the wiser or the happier? 

" All women do not marry. In Massachusetts 
alone, the excess of women Over men is as," etc. 
We are all familiar with that formula ; but where 
is the girl of seventeen who says, or who will 
cheerfully let somebody else say for her : " I am 
never likely to marry ; four women out of five 
don't, and of course I am one of the four. . I 
will ask papa to provide me some political 
works, some Congressional Reports, and the 
best party newspapers on both sides, and begin 
to fit myself for perpetual maidenhood and the 
political arena." Ah, Rose and Blanche, and 
pretty slips of girls generally, is that the way 
you reason in your own loving maidenly hearts ? 

But when grim Time has brought the cer- 
tainty of a single life, and left behind him some 



A S QUANTUM. 1 43 

of those bitter, grievous memories buried in 
almost every maiden heart past its youth, is 
that the time to begin to study kingcraft? 
For in a repubhc, — and God bless our own ! — 
every voter is a sovereign. Men begin their 
life's work in their teens, and men ripen more 
slowly and last longer than women. Can the 
woman expect, turning to man's work as a ref- 
uge from woman's disappointment, to gain the 
varied information, dispassionate judgment, in- 
bred self-control essential to a statesman, or 
indeed to any man who aims to guide the 
world? 

The dregs of a life disappointed of its best 
hopes are fit to offer neither to God nor man. 

The feast both of clams and oratory finished, 
the company returned to the outer air, where 
an enterprising photographer, brought out from 
town by Dionis during the dinner, petitioned for 
leave to make a picture of the group, relying 
for payment upon the inherent vanity of man- 
kind, which was sure to induce every man and 
woman there to buy one of the pictures as con- 
taining his or her own portrait. 

Finally, as twilight fell upon the sea and on 
the purple moors stretching far out of sight 



144 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

along its shore, the gay party went home, 
their hearts warm with mutual content and 
charity. 

Later in the evening, tempted by the radiant 
charm of the full moon, Mysie strayed around 
the town, still and calm as moonlight itself, and 
looking in at the Old North Vestry heard the 
young pastor eloquently weaving some allusions 
to the fifty who sat down and ate bread and fish 
upon the seashore that day, into an exegesis of 
the feeding of the five hundred who sat down 
by fifties on another shore and in other days, 
and yet the Giver always the same. 




SCRAP X. 



SCONSET. 



^^^pEVEN miles from the town of Nan- 
H^^i tucket, on the bold headland facing full 
^^^"^^ ^ Atlantic, at the southeast extremity of 
the island, lies the fishing hamlet of Siasconset, 
or, as it is indigenously styled, Sconset. Like the 
rest of the island, or even more than other locali- 
ties, this hamlet is fast hastening to destruction, — 
that paradoxical destruction born of prosperity. 
It was built, or rather a few fishing-houses for 
occasional use were built, in 1676, and for two 
hundred years it bore a character all its own, 
as distinctly flavored, and to the appreciative 
palate as piquant and delicious, as that one 
squantum clam. But, alas ! the world has 
found it out, has laid its degrading and com- 
monplace grasp upon it ; and the beginning of 
the end already stares one in the face in shape 
of cottages ornee, inclosed grounds instead of 
" commons," and groups of summer boarders 

10 



14^ NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

in dreadfully correct costumes sitting upon ve- 
randas, or, in wild abandonment to the freedom 
of untrammelled Nature, crouched upon shawls 
spread on the sand, and doing tatting and ric- 
rac under the shade of an umbrella. 

It is a moot question where life ceases to be 
conscious of itself and its surroundings. Mysie 
is inclined to think all creation is conscious in 
its own way, and that man's assumption that 
his own little link in the chain is the only one 
endowed with what he calls reason, is only one 
more proof of the charming arrogance char- 
acteristic of that special link. Most of the old 
houses at Sconset have stood there for more 
than a century, the stones, the sand, the gray 
old walls, the wild moorland are the same ; what 
if all these know and feel their own aristocratic 
dignity, and the spic-and-span newness of the 
new lords and new laws who are coming to push 
them from their stools ! Fancy an old Castilian 
hidalgo, poor as poverty and proud as Lucifer, 
who sees a colony of Manchester cotton-spinners 
building wooden villas and lodging-houses for 
operatives just outside his gates and opposite 
his very windows ! Ten years from now, unless 
some kind Fate avert, one might as well stop at 



SCONS ET. 147 

Cottage City as go on to Sconset, and might 
hope to enjoy the pleasures of unspoiled Na- 
ture, human or inhuman, as quietly at Long 
Branch as at Sankaty Head. 

Let us read the description of this place a 
century ago, given by Hector St. John. Already 
it has the mystical flavor of antiquity, the sad 
refrain of Nevermore, so strangely attractive to 
the soul whose highest hope is Evermore ; but 
Avhen the ten years are passed, the story of the 
American Planter will have become all but 
mythicai : — 

*' I arrived at last at Siasconset. Several dwellings 
had been erected on this wild shore for the purpose 
of sheltering the fishermen in the season of fishing, 
but I found them all empty except the particular one 
to which I had been directed. It was, like the others, 
built on the highest part of the shore, in the face of 
the great ocean; the soil appeared to be composed 
of no other stratum but sand, covered with a thinly 
scattered herbage. What rendered this house still 
more worthy of notice in my eyes was, that it had been 
built on the ruins of one of the ancient huts erected 
by the first settlers for observing the appearance of the 
whales. Here lived a single family without a neighbor. 
I have never seen a spot better calculated to cherish 
contemplative ideas ; perfectly unconnected with the 
great world, and far removed from its perturbations, 



148 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

the ever-raging ocean was all that presented itself to 
the view of this family, — and it irresistibly attracted my 
whole attention. 

• • • • • • 

"This family Hved entirely by fishing, for the plough 
had not yet dared to disturb the parched surface of 
the neighboring plain ; and, indeed, to what purpose 
could this operation be performed? Here I found a 
numerous family of children of various ages, the bless- 
ings of an early marriage ; they were ruddy as the 
cherry, healthy as the fish they lived on, hardy as the 
pine knots. The eldest were already able to encounter 
the boisterous waves, and shuddered not at their ap- 
proach, early initiating themselves into the mysteries 
of that seafaring career for which they were all in- 
tended ; the younger, timid as yet, on the edge of a 
less agitated pool ['Corn Pond? '], were teaching them- 
selves with nut-shells and pieces of wood, in imitation 
of boats, how to navigate in a future day the larger 
vessels of their father through a rougher and deeper 
ocean. I stayed here two days, on purpose to be- 
come acquainted with the various branches of their 
economy and their manner of living in this singular 
retreat. The clams (the oysters of this shore), with 
Indian dumplings (a peculiar preparation of Indian 
meal boiled in large lumps), constituted their daily and 
most substantial food. Larger fish were often caught 
on the neighboring Rips, and these afforded them their 
greatest dainties. They had likewise plenty of smoked 
bacon. 



SC ONSET. 149 

" The noise of the spinning wheels announced the 
industry of the mother and daughters. One of them 
had been bred a weaver, and, having a loom in the 
house, found means of clothing the whole family. 
They were perfectly at ease, and seemed to want for 
nothing." 

Our planter goes on to say, speaking of the 
island generally, that he found very few books 
among the inhabitants, — a few Bibles and 
school-books, both in the English and Natick- 
Indian tongues, and also several copies of Hudi- 
bras and of Josephus ; Hudibras being the favor- 
ite of the whole, although, as he naively remarks, 
nobody appeared in the least to understand the 
satire. 

From this nucleus of one settled home,. Scon- 
set grew through the next century to a hamlet 
of permanent inhabitants, many of the houses 
being built upon the ruins of the huts erected to 
observe the whales, as Hector puts it, and many 
of the huts being enlarged and strengthened 
into stocky little houses spreading themselves 
upon the ground, and crouching their bodies to 
let the wind blow over them, — very much as one 
may have seen an Isopod iiiiscus flatten herself 
to the ground when the sheltering board or stone 



ISO NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

was lifted off. Those dwellings erected by men 
who regarded the sea as a large stew-pond, 
intended to provide them with cod, hake, and 
haddock, an occasional whale, and the frequent 
clam, took it no more into account in placing 
their houses than they did the turnip field 
which had at last invaded the sterile common, 
of whose capacities the ** Pennsylvania Farmer " 
speaks so contemptuously. They did not want 
to see the sea, and they did want to see each 
other; so the first permanent cottages were built 
in two rows facing each other, just like the lads 
and lasses in a contra dance, — the weather row, so 
to speak, turning their backs upon the ocean, and 
carrying their squat roofs so near to the ground 
as to leave only room for some pig-pens, rubbish 
heaps, and fish-sheds opposite the back win- 
dows ; and as they were placed so close together 
that the housewives could easily converse with 
each other out of the end windows while at their 
work, this line of cottages entirely shut off the 
sea-view from their opposite neighbors, — the 
result being a little village perched on the verge 
of a cliff overlooking a magnificent marine view, 
and hardly a window in it from which one can 
see the water ! 



SCONSET. 151 

The next cycle of Sconset history was marked 
by the discovery of some of the Nantucket mag- 
nates who had grown rich by whahng, that the 
air of this locaHty was much more bracing than 
that of the town, or even of the west CHff ad- 
joining it, and that it would be rather a good 
idea to go out there and stay a part of the sum- 
mer. The little mob of cottages setting to each 
other upon the brow of the cliff offered no fit- 
ting accommodation for these magnates, even 
had there been enough in number, and they 
proceeded to erect a sort of marine villa as dif- 
ferent from the impertinences of to-day as they 
were from the huts of the whale observers, — be- 
ing plain, comfortable houses, painted with many 
coats of white or Quaker-brown paint, with green 
blinds, a piazza in front, and a ''walk" on top, a 
little stable to shelter the excellent horse, abso- 
lutely necessary for a family living seven miles 
from its home or any sort of market, and an en- 
closed paddock for the cow, whose milk, in the 
degeneracy of the age, had become an essen- 
tial to the grandchildren of those who had lived 
contentedly on clams and Indian dumplings. 
These dignified and comfortable summer dwell- 
ings were arranged in a street running at right 



152 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

angles to that upon the diff, and forming an 
approach to it ; but these, as befitted their dig- 
nity, stood well apart, each in its own grounds, 
while the street was so wide that at least three 
wheel-tracks to-day serpentine through the grass 
clothing it from side to side. Here the well- 
to-do ship-owner, merchant, or captain, his wife 
and children, with perhaps a ''help" or two, 
came out in the summer time, bringing great 
hampers of provisions, beds, old clothes to be 
worn out, and some ponderous pieces of sewing 
to be accomplished in the long still days. The 
fathers went fishing, stood on the cliff with spy- 
glasses in their hands watching for wrecks, or 
sat upon each other's piazza in roomy leathern 
arm-chairs tilted back, smoking interminable 
pipes, and slowly telling as interminable sto- 
ries. The mothers kept the house, did that 
sewing, or took their knitting-work and ran into 
neighbor So-and-so's to have a little afternoon 
chat, and learn the new recipe for sponge cake 
or green-corn pudding. The children ran wild, 
dug wells upon the beach, built sand-forts, tum- 
bled down the cliff, and roamed the moors for 
berries or wild-flowers. And the young folks? 
Well, they amused themselves, too. Ask any 



SCONSET. 153 

middle-aged Nantucketer what he or she used 
to do at Sconset summer evenings, and first he 
or she will laugh roguishly, then sigh regret- 
fully, then say: "Well, well, young folks will be 
young folks, you know," and then proceed to 
give you some very amusing stories. 

One of the whimsical links between man and 
the lower orders of creation here presents itself 
to contemplation. The tutelary deity of Sconset 
was the whale ; the earliest buildings were ** the 
huts built by the first settlers for observing the 
appearance of the whales." Having observed 
and captured a good many of them, the descend- 
ants of these first settlers became rich enough to 
build summer houses at Sconset and take their 
pleasure therein on a very liberal scale of house- 
keeping. The whales departed from observa- 
tion not only of the settlers, but even of the 
vessels circling the Poles in search of them ; 
the men enriched by whaling grew poor; the 
summer houses, no longer repaired and painted, 
grew forlorn and monumental ; the owners died 
and their children went away; nobody bought 
houses which everybody wished to sell ; and 
the whale, and the magnates, and the Golden 
Age deserted Sconset all at once. 



154 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

For some mournful years the villas stood 
closed, forlorn, and hopeless ; the contra dance 
upon the cliff went on all the same, for the men 
who live by cod, haddock, and hake are much 
more certain to find their living than those who 
live by whales. What saith Bunyan : — 

" He that is down needs fear no fall ; 
He that is low, no pride ; 
He that is humble ever shall" — 

but the last line does not fit Nantucket even at 
Sconset. And during these prosperous years, 
and later on, a great many more little squat cot- 
tages grew up behind the contra dance, and a 
town-pump gave solidity and a nucleus to the 
settlement; and a good many of the townspeo- 
ple — not at all rich or magnate-ical — owned 
these cottages and came out in a quiet way to 
spend a few days and get a change of air ; and 
the failure of the whale-crop did not very much 
alter this custom, except by making everything 
a good deal more quiet. 

But now, since 1880, another change has come 
upon Sconset; now the hardy fisherman upon 
the cliff finds that he can make more money by 
renting his cottage to the summer boarder, and 
himself going '' down town " for change of air, 



SC ONSET. 155 

than by living quietly at home. And the hardy 
fisherman having a keen eye to his own inter- 
est, pursues it; and the summer boarder hiring 
the cottage puts a little board on the outside 
announcing that this is Miacomet Lodge, or 
Sans Souci, or Ric-Rac Refuge, or some equally 
appropriate title ; and having arranged some 
striped shawls, cretonne, brackets, vases, and 
other paraphernalia of home-making, proceeds 
to enjoy himself, herself, itself, very satisfacto- 
rily to all but the discontented traveller, who, 
flying from the atmosphere of city ways, city 
talk, city thoughts, experiences, and anticipa- 
tions, comes to this little out of the way corner 
of the globe to find all that he has fled thrust- 
ing its head out of the fishermen's windows 
with, — 

*' Excuse me ; but do you know if Captain 
Baxter has brought the mail-bag yet? I am so 
anxious to see this morning's ' Advertiser.' " 

Oppressed with these thoughts, and saunter- 
ing moodily along the edge of the cliff one day, 
Mysie came upon an ancient man, sitting on a 
bench and looking through a spy-glass. Her 
heart warmed to him as it might to Osceola 
viewing the graves of the Seminoles; and as 



15^ . NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

he courteously moved to the other end of the 
bench and said it was a fine morning, she sat 
down and echoed the sentiment. The spy-glass 
was offered, but being able to discern both the 
sky and the sea with the naked eye, and there 
being nothing else to look at, Mysie declined 
the civility. Fancying, however, that her new 
friend looked a little disconcerted, she said, — 

'' I suppose you are quite in the habit of com- 
ing out here to look for wrecks, are you not? " 

** Faith, thin," replied the venerable being, 
speaking in extenso for the first time, *'it's the 
only toime I iver was herre in me life, and I 
hope it'll be the last; fur a nastier hole I niver 
see." 

*' Oh, you don't live here, then?" inquired 
Mysie, feeling as if she were in a cold shower- 
bath. 

" Me live herre ! " exclaimed he, indignantly; 
" me home is in South Boston, wid an iligant 
view of the harrbor and forty-eight ferry-boats 
a day just forninst me house, and a street-band 
three times a week in the Square, and the church 
jist handy; and what made me gurrls think av 
comin' to this haythin ould place, bates me." 

And this was Mysie's Ancient Mariner ! 



SCOA^SET. 157 

This, however, is episodical, and we go back 
to the day when a big wagon, drawn by two 
very competent horses, stood before the house 
in Pearl Street, and the papa and mamma, with 
Rose, Blanche, and Harry, and the senor and 
senora, with the joven, the senorita, the nifio 
and nina, and finally Mysie and the driver, were 
gayly packed into the four capacious seats and 
drove away as enthusiastically and noisily, after 
leaving the precincts of the town, as if not one 
member of the party had attained years of dis- 
cretion, — that much-lauded condition not being 
usually attained without the payment of a good 
deal of the capacity for enjoying irraticmal en- 
joyments, such as jolting over a rough road, 
mimicking Dionis, singing college songs, making 
puns, and laughing at those made by others. 

It was on this occasion that Mysie first saw 
the Nantucket moors, — and yet did not see 
them, for, with moors as with ocean and moun- 
tains, one must be in the mood to see, or one 
sees nothing, except as a surveyor. 

In the calm light of reason these moors con- 
sist of some hundreds of acres of nearly level 
land, comprising the whole interior of the island, 
and stretching from shore to shore. The seven- 



158 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

mile road to Sconset lies across them, and once 
clear of the town and past the outlying farms, 
one might well fancy himself not only out of 
New England, but out of America, and set down 
on a Yorkshire or Scottish moor. Some peo- 
ple say, "■ Oh, is n't it just like a prairie? " But 
it is n't ; for it lacks the immensity, the leisurely 
sweep to an almost unattainable horizon, the 
grandeur and oppressiveness of a genuine prai- 
rie. Besides, the soil, which Hector St. John 
justly describes as a stratum of sand thinly 
covered with poor soil, is not in the least like 
the wealthy loam of one class of prairie, or the 
alkaline or shardy soil of others ; and of course 
the soil affects the herbage, and here we have 
neither buffalo-grass, sage-bush, nor mesquite, — 
no grasses at all in fact, but an infinity of those 
native growths we call weeds, hardy independ- 
ent little individuals, true Nantucketers, satisfied 
with their own identity, and serenely indifferent 
to the fact that their visitors are searching 
among them for what is not there. Most of 
these happy little weeds have flowers, not al- 
ways very perceptible, but to be found by sym- 
pathetic eyes ; and some of them are royal in 
their beauty like the scarlet lilies (reminding one 



SC ONSET. 159 

always of Solomon), the deep-tinted firm-petaled 
wild roses, the azaleas or swamp honeysuckle, 
and the rare sebacia, found in one or two places. 
But chief among the flora of these moors is 
ranked, both by inhabitants and visitors, some 
patches of veritable heather, — none of the 
make-believes doing duty in various parts of 
our country for this Old-World darhng of poet, 
painter, and pedestrian, but true purple Scotch 
heather. It is a little shy, and it is not every- 
body who is invited to its pleasmmce. Mysie 
discovered a patch one day during a big walk, 
and found herself disliked by a Nantucket friend 
to whom she spoke carelessly of what she had 
seen, showing proof in two or three stalks at her 
button-hole. 

" Oh, but we don't like people to find out 
where it grows ! " naively exclaimed the botanist ; 
and Mysie sympathized with her, for she had 
known the misery of seeing a lovely woodland 
nest of climbing fern desecrated and desolated 
by annual invasions of Goths, who, not content 
with loading buckets and boxes with the beauti- 
tiful fronds, tore up the plants by the roots, 
dragged them down from the heights, and tram- 
pled and destroyed, until nothing was left, and 



l6o NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

the invasion ceased. Also she remembers the 
time when the sweet-breathed, rose-tinted may- 
flower (^Epigea repens) w^as really a prize, and 
only to be found by going to its own country 
near Plymouth Rock, or was received as a spe- 
cial token of regard from one's cousins living in 
that neighborhood ; but now it is as much mat- 
ter of merchandise as pea-nuts, and suggests as 
tender associations. 

By next year, probably the " smart " boys of 
Nantucket will have discovered that heather 
is scarce and therefore valuable, and every 
inch of the ** commons " will be searched and 
every plant plucked from its home of centuries. 
EJieii ! 

In former times anybody wishing to drive 
from town to Sconset, or to the South Shore, did 
so at his own discretion; and if he found too 
many of his neighbors had followed his favorite 
line, so that the wheels had cut inconveniently 
deep through the surface and into the sand, he 
took a parallel line, until at last the course as 
the crow flies from town to Sconset was scarred 
with wheel-tracks, like the bars of a gridiron 
or the wrinkles on a discontented brow. Time 
does not smooth out wrinkles as a general thing, 



SCOiVSET. l6l 

and he did not these. Kindly Nature has to be 
sure covered them with a charitable mantle of 
green ; but this makes the matter of driving over 
them worse, since the wheels and the horse's 
missteps discover the inequalities of the surface, 
instead of the driver's eyes. Moved by these 
annoyances, somebody struck out the *'New 
Road" to Sconset, which claims to be somewhat 
shorter, but, as dispassionate judges decide, is 
already about as bad in condition as the old. 
An attempt was made to border this road with 
evergreen trees, and Captain Josiah Sturgis, Mr. 
Gardner, and the town fathers all did something 
in that way ; but it is the less important to dis- 
cover exactly who claims the greatest share of 
the work, since the trees are all dead, dying, or 
relapsing into nothingness by shrivelling in the 
east wind. When the white man first discov- 
ered this little island it was covered with a heavy 
growth of oak, cedar, and other timber, but as 
usual the white man soon disposed of all that 
sort of thing without an attempt to replace it ; 
and after a couple of centuries of parching and 
starving, the indignant soil refuses to support 
the new growth which the white man has be- 
come civilized enough to desire. However, to 

II 



1 62 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

our mind the bare wind-swept moors, with the 
sea ghmmering on the horizon, is better than 
woodland. 

And so the big wagon reached Sconset, every 
feminine hand holding a bunch of flowers, every 
masculine frame glov/ing and breathless from 
its exertions in jumping out to gather them, 
and then running after the wagon which waited 
for nobody. Down the wide street with the 
closed balaenarian villas and the two hotels, — 
one old and the other new,- and each possess- 
ing its own character, — and through the green 
lanes dividing the rows of fishermen's cottages 
close upon the cliff, to a pleasant little house 
standing across the end of the street, and never 
seeming to imagine it was in anybody's path; 
and here a cheery old man — once the dauntless 
commander of a whaling ship, then a fisherman, 
and now a much-to-be-prized narrator of sea- 
stories — took charge of the horses, and invited 
the guests into his house. They preferred the 
beach, however, and after straying for a while 
along the brow of the cliff, thirty-three feet high 
here, and commanding the same illimitable, sail- 
less expanse of vexed waters as that at South 
Shore, they descended some steps to the sands. 



SCOiVSET. 163 

Here were collected nearly all the summer pop- 
ulation of Sconset, for it was the bathing hour; 
and although only a few persons are determined 
enough to adventure in these troubled waters, 
everybody likes to see other persons doing so. 

It is certainly rather a heroic amusement, and 
better suited to the ** athletes," who in the lightest 
of costumes plunged boldly in, diving through 
the toppling wall of the approaching breaker 
and disporting themselves outside the line of 
surf like young Neptunes, than to the women, 
who, fettered in decent clothing, clung cohvul- 
sively to a rope, one end made fast on shore, 
the other about twenty feet out at sea, and 
allowed the incoming waves to break over 
them. Owing to the violence of the tide the 
water is very dirty, bringing in quantities of 
seaweed torn into little clinging bits, a great 
deal of sand, and a scum of yellowish color look- 
ing like conglomerated fish-oil. The natural 
result is, that, after clinging to the rope for ten 
or fifteen minutes and being deluged with twice 
as many breakers, the ladies emerge, or rather 
get up and run away before the next wave 
catches them, covered with a shag of marine 
ddbris, very salubrious no doubt, but reminding 



1 64 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

one of the pictures of Orson in the child's story- 
book, and suggestive of some very protracted 
cleansing process before dress or wearer can 
be made presentable. But it was a pretty sight 
to see a stalwart pater farniliaSy an exponent of 
muscular Christianity as it was reported, who 
came down to the water followed by four or five 
little blue-flannel-suited creatures, and left them 
standing hand in hand at the edge of the water, 
curling their little white toes into the sand and 
shrieking with delight, while he plunged round 
for a while by himself, executing various ele- 
phantine gambols for the amusement of his chil- 
dren ; then, standing mid-leg deep, he took one 
after the other in his arms and dipped and ducked 
them carefully but quite thoroughly, the smaller 
ones clinging tight to his neck with an undoubt- 
ing faith, very pretty and very suggestive of a 
true paternal and filial relationship. When all 
were done they scuttled away to the bathing- 
houses like a covey of partridge chicks, and the 
father, taking a header through the next emer- 
ald wall rising in front of him, swam out toward 
Africa, but. as one most devoutly hopes, did not 
go all the way. 

Not feeling at all attracted to Sconset as thus 



SC ONSET. 165 

seen in possession of her brother and sister 
coofs, Mysie still felt it a duty to "do it" thor- 
oughly, and accordingly engaged board at one 
of the hotels for a date some weeks in advance ; 
then joyfully resuming their seats in the big 
wagon, the gay party drove townward again 
over the moors where now the great gray owls 
hiding in the swamps at the foot of Saul's Hills 
began to flit mysteriously across the darkening 
sky, and the mists to gather ghostily in the 
heathery hollows. 

But not yet did the moors reveal themselves, 
for like the owls they love not gay crowds. 




SCRAP XL 



SCONSET IN SUMMER. 




T has been mentioned by several authors 
in several tongues, both dead and liv- 
ing, that this world is given to change; 
and one finds it easier to receive this axiom with 
the faith appropriate to so venerable a saying, 
by having proved it true very often in one's own 
experience. Nantucket, in its normal condition, 
was not changeable ; but in its present condi- 
tion it is about as changeable as the hands of 
a clock, or the line of surf upon a beach, or the 
size of the visible moon. Three weeks from 
the day of the Sconset party, its members were 
scattered far and wide, — Mysie, and probably 
the driver, alone remaining on Nantucket. The 
senor, the senora, the joven, senorita, niiio and 
niila. Rose, Blanche, Harry, the papa and mam- 
ma, — all were gone. New faces surrounded the 
table, new forms filled the parlor, hall, and porch ; 
the Coffin reunion was approaching, and the Clan 



SCONSET IN SUMMER. 1 6/ 

Coffin was gathering from north, east, south, 
and west. 

Again, it has been averred by several authors, 
that, in a changing world, no detail is more 
changeable than woman. This is an error: 
woman is constant, sometimes for quite long 
periods of time ; and Mysie, being the most 
constant of her sex, declined to become inter- 
ested in new friends, preferring to wander with 
the simulachre of Blanche to the Old North 
Burying-ground, and sit upon a tomb looking at 
the ripening blackberries, and wishing the child 
were there to tease her about them, or to stroll 
disconsolately through Guinea and the water- 
side streets, wishing for somebody to tell her 
their legends. But Experience, 

" with a subtile smile in her mild eyes, 

The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh, 
Half whispered in her ear — " 

" You are getting bored in this place ; go away 
for a little, and when you come back there will 
be something new to interest you." It was good 
advice, if a little cynical ; and Mysie made ar- 
rangements to go, earlier than she had planned, 
for a week or two to Sconset. Now the usual 
way to go to Sconset is to take passage with 



1 68 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

Captain Baxter, who comes over every day to 
meet the boat and fetch the mail ; or with Levi 
Coffin, who drives a friendly opposition wagon ; 
or with some other Sconset man down town, in 
a casual sort of w^ay, — and this style of passage 
costs a dollar ; but one may hire a comfortable 
carry-all, good horse, and driver for three dol- 
lars, and enjoy one's self, — and this was the 
mode of Mysie's second expedition to Scon- 
set. Her kind and handsome hostess, and a 
new friend, Myra by name, accompanied her. 
The day was exhilaratingly fine ; the moors be- 
gan to reveal themselves ; the red lilies bloomed 
on every side, and some pretty but disappoint- 
ing red berries called meal-berries, and filled 
with a sort of cotton-dust, offered temptation 
to several descents and short foraging expedi- 
tions. But seven miles is not a great distance; 
and all too soon the goal was reached, the horse 
baited, the dinner eaten, the beach visited ; and 
Mysie, standing forlornly at the gate, saw her 
pleasant companions drive away, leaving her as 
lonely as she ever was in her life. 

Who is it that says it is impossible to enjoy 
solitude without one companion to whom we 
may confide, *' How sweet is solitude"? It must 



SCONSET IN SUMMER. 1 69 

have been Solomon. Now Mysie had no com- 
panion, and the rest " va sans dire!' She was 
awfully, horribly lonely, and in the morose con- 
dition of mind induced by a lonely fit of the 
blues. Had this week been all she knew of 
Sconset, she would have preserved a discreet 
silence about the place, preferring to argue 
herself unknown to confessing her ignorance 
of its charm. Later on she did come to know 
it, as shall be told ; but during this week in Au- 
gust she altogether failed to discover it, or to 
find any way of employing herself. She did not 
know how to do ric-rac or tatting, and so could 
not join the circle of ladies who, with doors and 
windows close-shut, because of the furious wind, 
sat in the penitential parlor all the morning, 
content and cheerful in a manner honorable to 
human nature, but incomprehensible to Mysie's 
nature. It was impossible to walk comfortably 
on account of the furious wind, the drifting sand, 
the glare of the sun, and the absence of paths ; 
there was nowhere to drive except back to town, 
or to make an all-day excursion to VVauwinet; 
the amusement of watching the bathers had its 
limit, and to join them was a method of enjoy- 
ment not appealing to Mysie's sense of fitness. 



I/O NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

She looked for the Sconset people, hoping to 
improve her mind by maritime, cetaceous, and 
piscatory conversation; but the Sconset peo- 
ple, as has been said, abandon their hamlet to 
the summer boarders as absolutely as the Aca- 
dians abandoned Acadia to the English, so that 
the home-sick South Boston Irishman was the 
nearest approach to an Ancient Mariner Mysie 
at this time discovered. 

Still, to do a dismal memory full justice, there 
was one hour of enjoyment in that week worth 
the six days, twenty-three hours surrounding it, 
as the pewter-hued silver setting encased our 
grandmother's diamonds. Sconset, as has been 
stated, lies along the edge of a bluff ascending 
in height from thirty-three feet at the village to 
eighty-five at Sankaty Head, where stands a 
pharos known as Sankaty Light, — naturally an 
object of interest where objects of interest are 
few and simple. There are two modes of com- 
munication between village and light-house, — 
one a grass-road faintly defined across the sheep 
pastures and uninclosed moor-land, practicable 
for carriages if the driver does not mind taking 
down and putting up five sets of bars, or for 
foot passengers who can either climb or creep 



SCONSET IN SUMMER. I/I 

through said bars, and do not mind scorching 
sun and tornadoes of wind by day, getting lost 
by night, and torn shoes and fringed skirts in 
any case; the other path Hes along the edge 
of the bluff, so close indeed that in many places 
it seems to overhang the beach, and occasion- 
ally is so crumbled away that one must cling to 
the fence on the landward side, or even sidle 
along upon its lowest rail. The atom of risk 
thus incurred has its fascination of course, and 
is perhaps the best thing at Sconset during the 
Vandal invasion ; but as this path faithfully fol- 
lows all the headlands and bays scalloping the 
coast line, it makes a walk of something over 
two miles, and, including the fence-gymnastics, 
a rather fatiguing one, especially with sun and 
wind as adversaries, while after dark it is decid- 
edly unsafe. One evening after tea, however, 
Mysie, driven to desperation by ric-rac and 
mouldy hay inside the house and deadly dul- 
ness and soft sand outside, resolved at least to 
earn a good night's rest by the five-mile excur- 
sion to the light-house and back. In the vil- 
lage, all South Boston sat on the benches bor- 
dering the bluff, or disported itself on the sands 
below ; but this was soon left behind, and pass- 



1 7 2 NANTUCKE T SCRAPS, 

ing through the grounds of a gentleman who 
with a fine sense of justice has provided gates 
and a shell-walk for the public, as compensation 
for claiming a section of the bluffs as his own, 
Mysie entered upon the grand domain of Nature 
and felt herself elevated into that large and calm 
atmosphere wherein the petty annoyances and 
discontents of life are swept out of sight like 
mosquitoes before a north wind. The sun had 
set, and the glory of the west was reflected in 
the east in sympathetic radiance, while far out 
upon the empty ocean the fog came creeping in, 
— a dark dweller upon the threshold ; the sigh 
of Nature, " In the midst of life we are in death." 
But the fog was yet far away, and east and west 
glittered and glowed with rose and gold, and the 
salt air came sweet and strong to quicken the 
pulse and give vigor to brain and muscle ; and 
up against the blue of heaven rose the white 
shaft of the light-house, its newly-kindled light 
already contending with the dying glory of the 
day, — and Mysie, well content, sat down in a 
fence-corner and gave herself over to forgetful- 
ness of moral mosquitoes. Time was made for 
slaves, and she felt herself suddenly free; and 
with the intemperance of sudden enfranchise- 



SCONSET IN SUMMER. 1 73 

ment abused her freedom, so that, when she re- 
sumed her journey, both east and west were 
grown dim and wan, and the face of sea and 
land showed beneath the first film of fog like 
the still face of the dead beneath the reverent 
veil. The path about to swerve inland toward 
the light-house indulged in one last freak re- 
sulting in a bad bit, across which one must 
scramble by aid of the fence, itself extremely 
shaky; and so it fell out that when at last My- 
sie, climbing the little hill, stood at the foot of 
the light-house, night had fallen thick and close, 
the cliff path was manifestly unsafe, and she 
paused only long enough to inquire meekly of 
the custodian the shortest and best way to the 
village across the moor. His answer was not 
encouraging, being of this wise : — 

*' Well, there is n't much of any way to call 
a road, especially as dark as 't is now ; but you 
see this sandy track cut up by the wheels? Well, 
follow that along, bearing to the left where it is 
kind of confused, and about half a mile or so 
from here you '11 see a little heap of stones at 
your left, and then you keep that path ; and if 
you can't see no path, why, — unless the fog 
comes on thicker than I guess it will, — you'll 



174 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

see the lights at Sconset, and you '11 kind o' bear 
away for them." 

Mysie looked across the misty waste toward 
which he pointed, and felt like Christopher Co- 
lumbus. The world was round, and by voyaging 
long enough in one direction she must arrive 
somewhere. 

'' There are no bogs or ditches for one to. fall 
into, are there?" inquired she, rising from the 
stone whereon she had briefly rested. 

" Oh, no ! not unless you get way out of your 
course over there to the right. There 's some 
ma'sh-land over there by Saul's Hills, Gibbs's 
Swamp, and the like; but you just bear to the 
left and make for Sconset lights, and you '11 
fetch." 

With these instructions Mysie set forth,, and 
presently found herself, so far as outward sense 
could demonstrate, alone in the world. The 
sandy track had ceased to glimmer beneath her 
feet, the village lights were not yet visible ; to 
the left the rise of the bluff cut off the view of 
the sea, to the right lay a dim and shadowy land 
across which slowly drifted strange shapes of 
fog, setthng, lifting, creeping, like the phantom- 
army encamped '* beside the Moldau's rushing 



SCONSET IN SUMMER. 1 75 

Stream;" the moon, wan as a watcher's face, 
struggled against the fog, now peering through 
its rifts, now swallowed in its depths. Only one 
thing remained to tell of man; the beacon-heht 
upon the rising land behind shone steadily yet 
strangely through the fog, which vainly tried to 
smother it, each ray making as it were a sepa- 
rate effort, and cutting its separate way through 
the enemy, — so that the effect was of a great 
central star surrounded by an aureole, the con- 
ventional star old painters loved to show as 
guiding the wise men. But as Mysie, sitting 
there all alone with the moor and the fog and 
the night, watched this great star, the drifting 
mist seemed now to carry it away out over the 
sea, whose melancholy monotone suited the 
picture well, now to bring it so near that one 
could hardly doubt it was advancing, — the tall 
majestic figure with a glory around its head, 
like One who walked upon the sea of Galilee. 
The intense solemnity of the scene was some- 
thing indescribable; the breadth of all the 
effects, the grandeur of the unseen ocean, the 
melancholy of the moors, the sky which ming- 
ling with the fog seemed to have come within 
one's reach, the wan moon, and the great lonely 



176 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

star made up a world wherein one forgot all 
smaller things and felt one's self the smallest 
of all things. One never stays long in such an 
atmosphere, however, and the transition is often 
very harsh. This time it was very gentle ; the 
tinkle of a bell muffled in wool, the crop, crop, of 
many little mouths, a soft stir among the herb- 
age, and the apparition of vague shapes on 
every side, neither avoiding nor attacking the 
human creature seated there beside the road, 
and so proving themselves brought into the 
covenant of mutual benefit between beast and 
man, wherein the poor creatures learn to love 
and trust him who feeds them, that he may ulti- 
mately eat them ! — a flock of sheep broken loose 
from their pasture and happy in forbidden grass, 
albeit not so rich as their own, but flavored with 
the sense of freedom. 

The dream was broken, and Mysie arose from 
the little heap of stones which she concluded 
must be -the cairn marking the departure of the 
foot-path from the wheel-track. No path at all 
was visible in the dim light, — but one has to be- 
lieve in so many things that are not visible and 
yet necessary ; and so passing to the left of the 
clump of furze beside the cairn, Mysie walked 



SCONSET IN SUMMER. 1 77 

on, and by and by perceived that she was 
following, not so much a path, as the reminis- 
cence of other feet over the grass, until the lights 
of Sconset shone cheerily in the distance, and 
the first set of bars propounded the question of 
climb or crawl to her anxious mind. 

After this the rest of the way was pleasant 
and easy, until about nine o'clock Mysie walked 
into the parlor where ladies sitting about a ker- 
osene lamp did ric-rac, gaped, and looked at 
their watches. One pleasantly inquired if she 
had been walking, and on hearing whither, 
looked mildly disapproving, and said it was 
too far, and she had already seen the light- 
house several times. Then everybody went to 
bed, and that day's joy was past. 

The next morning a friend arrived. We have 
all smiled at the cynic who, when his servant 
said he would like to step out and see a friend, 
exclaimed, *' A friend? Fetch my hat; I would 
like to see him, too." But probably nobody ex- 
cept Robinson Crusoe was ever more delighted 
in seeing a friend than Mysie, when from Levi 
Coffin's box-wagon there gayly descended, with 
red lilies in her hand, a young lady as igno- 
rant as herself of ric-rac indeed, but, like her- 

12 



178 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

self, finding ignorance such bliss that they cared 
not to be wise, and supplied the void in their 
lives with talk of other things. The reaction 
from total apathy was of course excessive and 
dangerous, culminating in a walk to Tom Nev- 
er's Head, — the western headland balancing 
Sankaty on the east ; Sconset being the pivot in 
the middle. Like most crusades, the motif of 
this was admirable, the detail exhausting, the 
culmination disastrous. The sun blandly re- 
marking to Mysie, " Do you suppose, because 
you are in a better humor, you can defy me?'' 
just pushed away the morning fog and shone. 
The wind held its breath to see the fun ; the 
path lying along Low Beach might as well have 
lain across that furnace heated " even seven times 
hotter than before ; " the beach-grass, long and 
tangled, swarmed with all things of a crawly, 
skippy, venomous nature ; and Tom Never's 
Head, two miles away, presented itself as a glary, 
unshaded eminence hard to climb, and present- 
ing upon its apex the anomaly of a life-saving 
station, before reaching which one would be sure 
to die. At its foot lay a wreck, through whose 
ancient ribs the waters broke derisively, and at its 
back lay a swamp, . — Tom Never's Swamp, — 



SCONSET IN SUMMER. 179 

where the owls and Tom Never's ghost sensi- 
bly shelter themselves during the noonday. Mr. 
Northrup, in his book about Sconset, gives a 
very different picture of Tom Never's Head ; and 
it is just as true as this one, the difference being 
the seamy side and the congregation side of the 
tapestry. It is nice to see things all round. 

"■ Myra," exclaimed Mysie, '' suppose we con- 
clude we have done enough for glory — too much 
for comfort — and turn back!" Myra, being 
an eminently quiet and well-mannered young 
lady, was beginning a highly proper reply, when 
suddenly the touch of nature common to femi- 
ninity forced an unconsidered scream from her 
lips, and pointing at Mysie's skirts, she gasped, 
" Ticks ! " 

Undoubtedly that impromptu embroidery, 
looking as if it were done in brown beads, but 
with the novel feature in embroidery of a con- 
stantly changing pattern, was ticks; and ticks 
being of that sympathetic and affectionate nature 
that they never are satisfied to leave any bar- 
rier between themselves and their friends, the 
stupendous problem arose. What proportion 
does the seen bear to the unseen in the works 
of Nature? 



l80 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

Hence Myra's shriek, Jiinc — but no ; the 
daily press has used up Jiinc illcB lachrymal, 
and has given us nothing to fill the place of the 
tears but a gape. Of course, a vigorous defence 
against the foe was at once instituted ; but it 
was like that of Gulliver against the Lilliputians, 
— numbers and devotion to a purpose, far more 
than outmatching size and self-conceit. Des- 
perate and rapid flight remained the only hope, 
and it was adopted. Two or three hours later 
the comrades, each emerging from her scene of 
solitary conflict, met in the wind-swept hall, and 
looked in each other's wan and worn faces. 

" I counted mine as I drowned them," said 
Myra, " and there were a hundred and thir- 
teen." 

'* I measured mine instead of counting," re- 
plied Mysie, not to be outdone. " How much 
do you fancy awash-basin holds? Mine is full." 

A few hours later a beach-was^on drove uo, 
and two cool, well-dressed, and provokingly 
comfortable-looking damsels alighted, with the 
remark, — 

** Of course, you are having a lovely time 
here, but we want to take you back to town 
with us." 



SCONSET IN SUMMER. l8l 

'' Had we better go, Myra?" inquired Mysie; 
''or do you want to stay for a few more excur- 
sions to Tom Never's, by way of Low Beach ? " 

So, as the sun, relenting of his morning cru- 
elty, drew the glory of sunset clouds about his 
face, and sank toward the western sea, the 
beach-wagon rolled townward, carrying four 
light hearts, four merry faces, four restless 
tongues; and the owls, just preparing for a 
moonlight flitting across the moor, were driven 
back to their swamps by peals of laughter and 
ringing choruses; and Betty and Myra must stop 
for every red lily, or wild rose, or swamp azalea 
to be espied with a telescope ; and Hattie nearly 
lost the use of her arms for life, in restraining 
the iron-mouthed beast who drew the waeon 
and evidently considered himself the only sen- 
sible person of the party; and Mysie, laugh- 
ing, singing, jesting, and happy as a child just 
out of school, had yet a quiet glance of recog- 
nition for the purpling moors and the dim hol- 
lows where already the fog lay ever so lightly, 
while in her heart was the unspoken greeting 
which one gives to a dear, dear friend, with 
whom by and by we shall speak in fullest con- 
fidence. As the carriage rolled through New- 



1 82 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

town gate, where once was a barrier to keep the 
sheep then grazing all the moors from coming 
Into town, and where also the one hanging ef- 
fected in Nantucket took place, the moon, clear- 
ing the horizon clouds, shed down her glory 
upon the old town and the waters clasping her 
around like a faithful spouse, who sees always 
the fair object of his early love in her whom 
the careless world calls old and bygone. A lit- 
tle silence fell upon the merry party as Hattie 
halted the horse and left time for the picture 
to impress itself, and then the uneven cobble- 
stones began, and the memorable drive was 
over. 







SCRAP XII. 



THE COFFINS. 




ND now arrived the three days of the 
Coffin reunion, bringing an influx of 
two or three hundred Coffins, — some 
nascitur, some fity but one and all firmly im- 
pressed with the idea that Tristram Coffin, 
and Dionis his wife, invented Nantucket a 
couple of centuries ago, and that the previ- 
ous Indians, the contemporary Macys, Folgers, 
Starbucks, Mayhews, etc., and the subsequent 
" coofs," " strangers," or " off-islanders," are 
alike accidental accretions. To this theory the 
Indians oppose only the pathetic silence of ex- 
termination, the coofs accept it carelessly, or set 
it on the shelf with their other Nantucket curi- 
osities, all pleasantly dubious of origin ; but the 
contemporaries, as represented by their descend- 
ants, meet it with a vast and outspoken scorn. 

'' Tristram Coffin ! " exclaimed one individual 
in a symposium at which Mysie assisted; " why, 



1 84 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

what was he but an old fisherman, with his 
trousers rolled above his knees, digging clams 
or hauling up his dory like anybody else In 
those days ; while DIonIs, whom they make such 
a fuss about, sold home-made beer In Salisbury, 
Mass., and is set down In the Town Records 
there as fined for selling bad beer. No, sir ! It 
was Thomas Macy and Edward Starbuck who 
settled Nantucket, and Tristram Coffin only 
came along In their wake." 

" Oh, If It comes to a question of the prin- 
cipal family on Nantucket," retorted another, 
" nobody can doubt the claim of the Folgers. 
Why, when they wanted to survey their land 
about three years after your Coffins and Macys 
settled here, they had to send over to the Vine- 
yard and coax Peter Folger to come and do 
it for them. There was n't a man-jack among 
them able to do It; why, there wasn't one of 
them could read or write, even ! " 

But at this statement a groan, a growl, a 
scream of derision arose from every Coffin and 
Macy within hearing, with a hubbub of voices 
deep or shrill, from among which presently 
issued the calm tones of a serene old Friend of 
Swain descent. 



THE COFFINS. 1 85 

" That was an unadvised statement, made by 
a very good but misguided man," said he; '' he 
even printed it upon the map he put forth ten 
years ago. But it is clear that since the 
twenty Purchasers and Associates who bought 
the island of Thomas Mayhew signed their 
names to their deed of association, they were 
able to write ; and as careful men do not sign 
what they cannot certify, it is likely they could 
read." 

" And as for the surveying, I believe Folger 
was as much a miller and builder as he was a 
surveyor," interposed a feminine Coffin ; " and 
I don't see that grinding corn is any more 
literary than raising it. And I should like to 
know how many of us in this room know 
how to do surveying: and yet I suppose 
we don't call ourselves very illiterate, do 
we?" 

The last argument was " a clincher," and the 
meeting broke up harmoniously, well content 
with having arrived at no conclusion whatever. 
But the discussion in varied forms and among 
various groups of people was renewed again and 
again, with so many arguments upon the Coffin 
side that one was altogether convinced of the 



1 86 NANTUCKET SCRAPS, 

justice of their claims, until a committee of Fol- 
gers, Gardners, Husseys, and the rest flatly con- 
tradicted all the Coffin statements, and met their 
arguments with others exactly as convincing, so 
that finally one remembered, — was it Sir Wal- 
ter Raleigh, who in his prison amused himself by 
writing a history? It was nearly complete, when 
a fracas in the prison-yard attracted his atten- 
tion and drew him to the window; the com- 
batants were presently separated and brought 
back into the common room, when the histo- 
rian, anxious to discover the rights of the quar- 
rel, '' interviewed " the leading persons on each 
side, but found all the accounts so opposed to 
each other, and all differing so decidedly from 
what he thought he had seen, that returning to 
his cell he tore his manuscript to bits, saying, 
" Who writes history is writing himself down a 
liar." Meantime the world goes on, whether 
Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin — who was born in 
Boston in 1759, about a century after Tristram 
and Dionis settled on Nantucket, and who built 
and endowed a school still flourishing in Nan- 
tucket — was actually one of the Tristram-Coffins, 
or, as the Folgers and Macys say, was merely a 
childless old man, who fancied leaving a monu- 



THE COFFINS. 18/ 

ment to himself among a people of the same 
name and possibly the same descent as himself; 
or whether Tristram dug clams in bare-skin 
buskins, and Dionis sold bad beer; or whether 
he resembled the be-ruffled, curled, silken-doub- 
leted cavalier of Charles the Second's period, 
whose picture was sold as the portrait of Tris- 
tram Coffin, during those days of reunion, — 
still the world goes on ! 

A great mitigation of party feeling in this 
most important question is the fact, that, during 
the two centuries of occupancy, these Nantucket 
families have married and intermarried in the 
most intricate manner, until probably any one in 
any family at the present day might claim about 
the same connection as does the Rev. Dr. Ewer 
of St. Ignatius Parish, New York, who, being 
brought to book for a statement anent Peter 
Folger's literary pre-eminence printed upon the 
map of Nantucket, which he hasphilanthropically 
surveyed, drawn, and published, with descriptive 
notes, as a guide to his native island, wittily re- 
plied by saying that he cojald not be supposed 
likely to disparage any Nantucket blood, since 
a " quantitative and qualitative analysis " of his 
own results as follows : — 



1 88 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

Silicate of Trott 2 per cent. 

Bicarbonate of Burwell 2 " 

Protoxide of Swain 3 " 

Nitrate of Worth 3 " 

Chloride of Cartwright 11 " 

Sulphate of Starbuck 11 " 

Hydrated Sulphuric Acid of Ewer .11 '* 

Superphosphate of Coffin .... 12 " 

Hydrated Deutoxide of Gardner . .15 " 

Aurate of Folger 29 " . 

Traces of Tobey, Wing, and Macy . i " 

100 " 
Perhaps one may guess the reverend chem- 
ist's private persuasion, by noting the propor- 
tion, both quantitatively and qualitatively, given 
to Folger. 

Although the elements frowned most unkindly 
upon the reunion, it was a very bright and in- 
teresting occasion. Cofhns from the cardinal 
extremities of these United States and the Do- 
minion of our dear sister Victoria gathered with 
much jubilation, and with a fortunate determina- 
tion not to mind discomfort ; for the accommoda- 
tions of the island being already nearly absorbed 
by " coofs from the continent," as strangers from 
the mainland are occasionally described in vig- 
orous vernacular, the Cofhns seemed likely to 
be reduced to the condition of snails, each sleep- 



THE COFFINS. 1 89 

ing in his own " shell " before the appointed 
season. 

The long easterly storm usual in Nantucket 
during August arrived in the same boat with 
the Coffins, and affectionately accompanied 
them in all their excursions, patiently wait- 
ing to see the last of them off the island be- 
fore it went itself. One work of this unbid- 
den guest was to defeat a so-called " pilgrim- 
age" of the clan to the grave of Captain John 
Gardner, before mentioned, this being also, in 
all probability, the spot where, or whereabout, 
Tristram and Dionis laid their weary bones, little 
guessing the commotion to be made over them 
two hundred years later. It was a pretty idea, 
and yet, — ideas belong to eras ; and perhaps 
the era of pedestrian pilgrimages over rough 
roads to the graves of one's ancestors is a little 
bygone, and American men are not much in 
that way, and American women are n't very good 
walkers, and the grass about those graves is full 
of ticks ; and, on the whole, it is possible the 
easterly storm was an angel in disguise, and then, 
— no doubt Captain John Gardner was a hos- 
pitable man in his day, but two hundred Coffins 
for one grave is a good many ! So the disap- 



1 90 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

pointed pilgrims went to the Methodist church 
instead, and had a few more speeches and a 
poem or two, and went away next day saying 
to each other what a splendid occasion it had 
been, and to themselves how glad they were it 
was over. One would not be cynical ; but is it 
not in every one's experience that the pleasures 
so elaborately prepared for, and so much antic- 
ipated in thought and speech, are just a little 
disappointing when they arrive? You cannot 
decant your champagne and hand it about to 
be admired, and sing songs to it, and make 
speeches about it, and then find the embodied 
perfume of the first flavor. Choose the pleas- 
ures of hope, the pleasures of possession, or the 
pleasures of memory : you won't get any two of 
them in perfection. 

A dangerous point also in family reunions of 
this sort is, that the common tie only brings 
closer home the inevitable differences of politics, 
religion, interests, and tastes pervading a com- 
pany gathered from every portion of our so 
lately dis-United States. The religious element, 
for instance, among the Coffins was represented 
by two or three gentlemen whose severely cleri- 
cal dress suggested the advanced Anglican ; by 



THE COFFINS. IQI 

Others of the Congregational body ; by Unitarian 
ministers, one of them certainly a most culti- 
vated and delightful person socially ; by Friends, 
any of them expected to exhort if the Spirit 
moves ; and by a representative female preacher. 
A conference upon matters of faith, like that be- 
tween Francis de Sales and the Geneva minis- 
ters, would have been a noticeable feature in the 
programme of exercises, but in the interests of 
family concord it was omitted. 

The Coffins gone away, and the island a little 
calmed after its astonishment, Mysie pursued 
her studies of its internal resources, and wan- 
dering through the moon-lighted streets one 
evening, met Hattie, who briskly inquired, — 

" Have you seen the dauphin? " 

" The prince imperial, do you mean?" 

'' Dear me, no ! The real thing, the last 
dauphin, who should have been or was Louis 
XVII." 

" Hattie, what do you mean?" 

'* Come with me." 

And, turning back a few steps, she mounted 
one of the peculiar stoops characteristic of Nan- 
tucket, and knocked with her knuckles upon a 
door. A mild and gentle lady presently opened 



192 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

it, and greeted Hattie in a voice which, Hke 
her face, suggested the gentle and restrained 
bearing pecuHar to those born or bred among 
Friends. 

'* I have brought my friend to see the dau- 
phin, if you will be so very kind as to present 
us," said Hattie, with a sly glance at the abso- 
lutely mystified Mysie. 

The quiet manner of the lady did not betray 
any appreciation of a jest; but pushing open 
the door of a room lighted only from the one 
beyond it, she said, " He is in this parlor. Will 
you walk in?" 

The friends walked in ; and looking about her 
in the dim light, Mysie perceived a child lying 
in the corner of a sofa, the dark head contrast- 
ing with the white dress and pillow. The lady 
had gone into the other room. "Why, here's 
a baby, Hattie ! " exclaimed she, softly. " We 
shall wake it, and then there '11 be a scene." 

"Sa Majeste le roi, Louis XVH. ! " announced 
Hattie, in a tone of sepulchral solemnity, and 
with the gesture of a gold-stick-in-waiting doing 
the honors of a royal ante-chamber to a guest. 

"■ What do you mean, you exasperating crea- 
ture ! " again demanded Mysie; and just then 



THE COFFINS. 193 

the hostess returned, and, Hghting the gas, 
mildly inquired, — 

*' Have you seen the dauphin?" 

" Yes. I was just presenting my friend," re- 
plied Hattie, demurely; and as the lady raised 
the figure and brought it forward, Mysie per- 
ceived that it was a life-sized and most life-like 
image of a child, perhaps a year old, the peculiar 
face differing widely from the conventional model 
of infantile beauty, and bearing the individuality 
which induces one immediately to declare, **0h, 
this is a likeness of somebody, quite evidently." 
More than this : the little face, with its air of 
dignity and hereditary hauteur, had decidedly 
the Bourbon ugliness as transmitted to us in 
so many portraits of that ill-starred race; and 
altogether one felt quite ready to accept with- 
out salt the story that Captain Jonathan Coffin, 
sailing away from Nantucket about a hundred 
years ago, promised his little daughter that he 
would bring her something different from what 
any of her playmates could boast, and, looking 
about him in France, found in a nunnery near 
Paris this image, modelled by permission from 
the head of the little dauphin, then about a year 
old. The s^ood sisters warranted it a likeness ; 



I 



194 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

and the captain, who idoHzed his Httle girl, paid 
something fabulous in price for this unique toy, 
and brought it home in triumph. The story is 
so straight and the internal evidence so great, 
that this rehc of the poor child, who with his 
father paid the debts of the three previous 
reigns, is an object of most pathetic interest. 
Several collectors of curios have tried to buy 
it, and most persons say, '' It ought to be in a 
museum, you know, — in some national collec- 
tion where, properly authenticated, it would 
grow more and more valuable ; " but Mysie 
hopes neither of these classes of collectors will 
have their way. The dauphin, lying carelessly 
in the corner of a sofa, with a sweet gentle lady 
to show him as a favor to those calling upon 
her, and then to lay him aside in the closet 
or anywhere, is so much more interesting and 
piquant than he could be in any wax-work 
show, private or national ; and it seems such a 
shame always to take things out of their own 
settings and transplant them into unassimilated 
ones, merely because one wants everything. 
The poor obelisk in Central Park, for instance ! 
How insulted Cleopatra and Cheops must feel, 
even in Hades ! 



THE COFFINS. 195 

Next door to the dauphin's house is another, 
the home of a still more marvellous thing, and 
quite as historically interesting in its way. It is 
popularly called the Smuggler's Hole, and is in 
a house owned and inhabited by two ladies upon 
whom one would think nobody could dream of 
intruding uninvited; but yet there have been 
so many exceptions to the rule that they have 
been obliged to learn to say "No" to unau- 
thorized applicants, and it is rather a delicate 
matter to ask for admittance. Hattie, however, 
arranged this ; and one wet and windy afternoon 
Mysie went alone, and was received by a lovely 
woman, with the sweet and grave expression 
upon her face of one inured to long physical 
suffering. The old panelling of the parlor, the 
fireplace, and some family pictures were the first 
objects of interest; and then going into the 
hall, the lady opened a closet extending under 
the great square staircase, and showed how in 
the back of it a door, once probably masked, 
but now simply latched, opened into a queer, 
roomy crypt, built into the great square chim- 
ney in such a fashion that no casual observation 
of the various apartments of the house would 
suggest any space unaccounted for. This closet 



19^ NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

had once an opening Into the parlor by a sHdIng 
panel ; and the most eagerly sought refugee 
would have been as safe here as in any Priest's 
Chamber of a mediaeval castle. Indeed, the 
present owners of the house did not discover 
their treasure for many years after their first 
occupancy, and then quite by accident. 

" The ceiling of this closet is the floor of the 
place you have come to see," said the sweet 
voice of the guide, glancing up at the dark 
boarding overhead. 

*' This is not the Smuggler's Hole, then?" 
asked Mysie, with a smile. 

*' No, that is still to explore; " and leading the 
way up the roomy staircase, the lady pointed to 
a window high in the wall over the middle land- 
ing, saying, — 

"That is the window of the place; and they 
say the goods hidden there were passed through 
the window and out at this window over the front 
door, and so down into a cart, by a rope and 
blocks. But nobody knows now; for if such 
things were done, they were naturally kept se- 
cret, and those who died left no record of their 
proceedings." 

*' Then it is not known just who the smug- 



THE COFFINS. 197 

glers were? It was, perhaps, before your family 
owned the house?" suggested Mysie, tenta- 
tively. The air of quiet reserve so character- 
istic of Nantucket gentlefolk deepened a little, 
but very courteously came the reply, — 

'* Nothing is known positively about the smug- 
glers, or even if there were any smugglers. One 
of our visitors suggested that the closets were 
made for storing and ripening wine ; he said 
the warmth of the chimney was just what was 
needed." 

She smiled a little in suggesting this fancy, 
and then quietly added, — 

" It all happened before our family bought the 
house, and nothing I suppose can ever be posi- 
tively proved ; but you know in the time of the 
Revolution, and again in 1812, Nantucket was 
very much exposed to British depredations, and 
even violence, so that it would be very natural 
for people to contrive safe hiding-places for their 
property, or for themselves and their friends. 
There was a very handsome girl over at Tuck- 
ernuck in Revolutionary times, — one of the 
Gardners, I think, — and her father hid her all 
one day under a heap of flax in the garret, be- 
cause a British cruiser was hoverincr about the 



198 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

island. If he had had a smuggler's hole In his 
house now, she might have been both safer and 
more comfortable." 

So speaking, the sweet lady led the way up the 
stairs, and after showing various quaint and pleas- 
ant chambers filled with old furniture and heir- 
loom draperies on the second .floor, up again to a 
great old-fashioned garret, such as one so seldom 
sees now, and such as will never be seen by any 
one when the present old houses are gone. 

*' Here is one hiding-place," said she, going to 
the corner, and pulling away some boards showed 
a darkness beyond, its extent or nature perfectly 
undistinguishable. 

Mysie, vainly peering in, asked, '' What is it? " 

Her companion laughed as she replied, ** In- 
deed, I don't know. I never had courage or 
curiosity to explore it; but they say it extends 
out over a porch at the side of the house, a 
place no one would ever dream of investigat- 
ing ; and when these boards are laid in place no 
one would think of raising them to look be- 
neath. • But here is the real cave, or, as most 
people call it, the Smuggler's Hole, — perhaps, 
meaning hold ; for it is a good deal like a ship's 
hold." 



THE COFFINS. 1 99 

She raised a trap-door in the floor as she 
spoke, and revealed a steep and narrow flight 
of stairs leading down into what might have 
been Tartarus itself, for darkness and gloom. 

" Do you care to go down ? " asked the lady ; 
" I have never been myself. It looks so black 
and is so close and deep." 

But Mysie, with a good deal of Thomas in 
her composition, liked to see everything for her- 
self; and leaving all impedimenta on the garret 
floor, clambered down the ladder-like stairs un- 
til she stood in a sort of well, with worm-eaten 
wooden shelves at one side and the worn bricks 
of the chimney at the other. Some crumb- 
ling mummies of vegetables remained upon the 
shelves, showing that the place with all the rest 
of , its uses had served the humble purpose of a 
vegetable cellar. 

"Those things have been there for fifty years 
at least," said the hostess, " and have, I suppose, 
survived the hands that laid them there. Won't 
you have one for a relic?" 

So Mysie took an onion, the one of all earth's 
fruits most connected with mummies and cata- 
combs and mysteries; for did not the children 
of Israel, with the milk and honey of Canaan 



200 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

and the grapes of Eshcol in promise, turn back 
to mourn for the onions of Egypt? Cheops, 
Sesostris, Cleopatra, the sculptor of the Sphinx, 
the architect of Karnak, they all ate onions and 
were not afraid ! It is only we weaklings of the 
nineteenth century who timidly avoid, or in 
stealth and cowardice indulge in, them. So My- 
sie, who like most persons especially admires 
the virtues she does not claim, cherishes that 
fifty-year old onion from the Smuggler's Hole, 
but would far rather die than consume a fresh 
one. Cleopatra chose both death and onions ; 
but red-haired people are generally courageous. 
So ended the summer campaign, — the visit 
'* in season" of this off-islander to Nantucket; 
and a few days later she departed with the im- 
mortal Oliver Twist's craving for '' More ! " 
strong upon her. 




PART II. 



NANTUCKET OUT OF SEASON. 




SCRAP I. 



THE SUMMER BOARDER. 






OME persons are fond of studying the 
past by reconstructing from fragments 
extinct forms of life, — leviathan, mas- 
todon, ichthyosaurus, and the like ; and al- 
though these scientists fight freely enough upon 
some points of their conclusions^ they all seem 
to agree upon one ; namely, that the earth must 
have been very differently prepared to meet the 
needs of these gentlemen from what it is in our 
day, and that ichthyosaurus and men could not 
have lived comfortably together. 

But some other persons, leaving the dead past 
to bury its dead, prefer to study the future in 
the new forms of life gradually developing under 
their eyes, and find amusement in picturing. the 
changes, physical and psychical, needed to adapt 
the world as a habitat of the coming creature. 

Conspicuous among these developing forms 



204 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

of curious life is the Summer Boarder. It is 
on the surface a ** sport," as the botanists say, of 
the order Man ; but a little analysis, even with- 
out the aid of the microscope, develops differ- 
ences already wide, and rapidly widening as the 
new species expands and becomes established. 
Man and woman in their ordinary condition may 
be considered in various relations of life, but 
just now we will confine ourselves to those mani- 
festations ordinarily called gentleman and lady. 
True, these terms are indefinite, and cover a 
sliding scale of qualifications, ranging down 
from those claimed by you, sir, and you, ma- 
dam, to those of the ** lady at the back door, 
mum, wanting some broken victuals." But or- 
dinarily it is conceded that the gentleman and 
lady are human beings educated to conceal that 
inherent selfishness, greed, disregard of the 
wishes or tastes of others, and general belief in 
the principle, — 

" Let him take who has the power, 
And let him keep who can," — 

which everybody brings into the world with him 
or her. This principle is instinctive and very 
subtile, especially among the more cultivated 



THE SUMMER BOARDER. 20$ 

classes ; and a great many very pretty speci- 
mens of self-delusion and delicious pharisee- 
ism are to be found by the industrious student. 
A small class, a very small class, of persons rec- 
ognizing these ugly traits in themselves under 
every specious form of disguise, set themselves 
to uproot the weeds, and supply their places by 
certain sweet and lovely exotics, such as charity, 
meekness, patience, and long-suffering: but like 
other exotics these are of slow growth and del- 
icate habit, requiring constant protection and 
nurture, lest the indigenous weeds should spring 
up and choke them out: a successful cultivator 
of this sort is probably the most perfect speci- 
men of gentleman or lady this earth can pro- 
duce. Another and far larger class comprises 
the persons who have been trained from birth 
and also inherit from progenitors a code of man- 
ners closely imitating the spontaneous action 
of the exotic-growers. They give up the best 
seat, the best dish, the choice of driving or 
saihng, the last word in the argument, and vari- 
ous other privileges dear to the creature homo, 
because politeness demands that they should, 
and they have learned in perfection the well-bred 
gambler's axiom, " Pay, and look pleasant." But 



206 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

this restraint being enforced, only endures for 
the occasion, and is compensated by very dis- 
agreeable and bitter remarks in private, and 
sometimes by a sly ill-turn done to the party to 
whom the well-mannered person has sacrificed 
itself. In ordinary life we thus have three va- 
rieties of lady and gentleman, — those who put 
down self and seek the happiness of others be- 
fore their own, from high Christian principle ; 
those who prefer their neighbor to themselves 
almost as assiduously as the first class, but merely 
from good breeding ; and the third who do not 
prefer their neighbor to themselves, but delude 
themselves in many subtile ways into fancying 
they are quite right not to do so. 

The stratum of humanity not calling itself 
lady and gentleman may be similarly divided, 
and is a still more curious and instructive 
study, holding in the first class men who will in 
their shirt-sleeves and cowhide boots do deeds 
of chivalry and show a delicate care of women 
worthy of Bayard, with feminines knowing not 
grammar and eating with their knives, but of 
lives fragrant with the love of God and de- 
votion to their neighbor ; the second class who 
ingenuously say, " I never would have give up 



THE SUMMER BOARDER. 20/ 

in the world, but the folks was all listening, and 
I knew they'd talk if I didn't; " and the third 
class who knock each other down, or plant their 
elbows in each other's ribs to gain precedence, 
snatch the food out of each other's hands if they 
are hungry, and swear and vituperate freely if 
they are offended. 

The Summer Boarder, however, is not ordi- 
narily grown from the latter classes, or if so, its 
habitat has not been discovered by the present 
explorer ; the new species is, in fact, largely the 
outgrowth of the second group of the first class, 
although borrowing freely from the first and 
third. But it is to be noted that the first group 
of the first species, being as it were the most gen- 
uine of the three, suffers the least change under 
any circumstances, and does not develop as fully 
as could be wished into the Summer Boarder 
even under the most favoring circumstances, — • 
as, for instance, a crowded summer resort with 
such paucity of accommodation that it is only by 
bold and persistent warfare any one may acquire 
or keep a carriage, a dry bathing-house, a good 
seat at the table, unchipped cups, the attention 
of servants, or the earliest services of the laun- 
dress. Our first group, under these circum- 



208 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

stances, show an unfortunate stubbornness about 
becoming anything other than ladies and gentle- 
men, and incur much the same fate as their pro- 
totypes of the Terror, — those debonair ladies 
and gentlemen who, disdaining to struggle with 
dames du halle and their kindred, relinquished 
all their outward goods, but retained even in 
the Conciergerie a gay courage, an infinite 
refinement and courtesy, and a quiet con- 
tempt of tribunal, sentence, and guillotine, 
which gave their murderers a great deal more 
annoyance than the stolen goods gave them 
pleasure. 

No, the Summer Boarder is not commonly 
drawn from this class ; and yet, alas ! as Lucifer, 
prince among angels, became king of devils, a 
star does occasionally fall to earth in the shape 
of meteoric cinders ; and one sometimes recog- 
nizes in a Summer Boarder a perverted speci- 
men of Class I., Group I. 

The Summer Boarder, then, whencesoever 
drawn, is a new variety of the order Man. He 
or more universally she lays aside at once, in 
arriving upon the arena (for this exhibition is 
actively competitive), all those restraints which 
under ordinary circumstances limit the exhibi- 



THE SUMMER BOARDER. 209 

tion of the natural instincts enumerated a little 
further back. The Summer Boarder neither 
feels nor feigns the slightest preference of his 
neighbor over himself; but calmly securing all 
that is desirable within his reach, casts a malev- 
olent eye upon such matters as the neighboring 
Summer Boarder has secured for himsQlL A 
lady of this description, for instance, arriving at 
a crowded watering-place with a party of friends, 
suggested their pausing on the way to the hotel 
to look at an object of interest, while she hast- 
ened on by herself and secured the only desir- 
able room. She would not have thought of 
such discourtesy in her city home ; but she had 
become a Summer Boarder, and her course was 
quite natural. Another specimen seats herself in 
a chair at the table d'hote, and when the possessor 
arrives, looks blankly unconscious of the usurpa- 
tion ; and when appealed to by the hostess de- 
clares her intention of keeping it. Another, and 
this one a male specimen, takes the back seat 
in the carriage, leaving a lady to seat herself 
with her back to the horses, and grow faint and 
sick before his eyes. It is characteristic of the 
Summer Boarder, when grouped in the parlor 
or upon the veranda of a Summer Boarding- 

14 



2 1 NANTUCKE T SCRAPS. 

house, to stare stonily at a new-comer, especi- 
ally if it be a lady, and alone, and on no account 
to offer any little courtesy, — as a seat, a fan, a 
remark about the heat, or information where 
the landlady may be found. If the stranger 
ventures a remark or an inquiry, the Summer 
Boarders either receive it in staring silence, or 
look from one to the other, as if asking, " Did 
this person, not having presented letters of in- 
troduction, speak to you, or to me?" Usually, 
in the end, the oldest and grimmest specimen ot 
the group tenders a reply, with much the same 
air one might give alms to a beggar suspected 
of small-pox. If the stranger remains waiting 
in the room or on the veranda, the Summer 
Boarders draw together and converse . in very 
low tones, occasionally putting up a hand or a 
fan to screen their remarks from the stranger, 
— suggesting the suspicion that she is trying to 
overhear the conversation. If a group of stran- 
gers enter the room, conversation is suspended, 
and the entire clump of Summer Boarders turn 
and attentively watch and listen to the new- 
comers, occasionally turning expressive glances 
of derision, wonder, inquiry, and the like upon 
each other; and before the new-comers are out 



THE SUMMER BOARDER. 211 

of ear-shot, a buzz of comment and inquiry- 
arises, quite reminding one of some of the 
African explorers' account of the conduct of 
Ashantees who never before had seen a white 
man. 

A great deal more detail concerning this new 
variety of homo might be brought forward, but 
Mysie refrains. It is on the whole a melancholy 
subject, and not to be forced upon the attention 
of those bright and happy souls who, by the 
care of parents and blest conditions of life, have 
grown up unconscious of the Summer Boarder, 
or only hearing of him as they do of Kaffirs, 
Kurdmen, and Cannibals. Dear innocent souls, 
remain in the bliss of ignorance while you may ! 
But those striDnger and more restless souls who 
cannot let the Sphinx alone, and must be forever 
scratching the surface of the Russian to see if 
there is a Tartar underneath, — those Adams and 
Eves who turn from the innocent bread-fruit of 
Paradise and demand the apples of the Tree of 
Knowledge, — those who wish to dissect, micro- 
size, and classify the Summer Boarder, will find 
an excellent field of observation and some splen- 
didly developed specimens at Nantucket during 
the season ; that is, during July, August, and 



2 1 2 NANTUCKE T SCRAPS. 

part of September. The growth is abundant, 
the characteristics strongly marked, the condi- 
tions unusually favorable ; for not more than 
half the persons thronging the island during the 
last two years could be comfortably accommo- 
dated, and there are few places where good hu- 
mor, courtesy, and a contented spirit, or their 
reverse, find more opportunity to flourish. 
Come, then, and study your kind, O optimist ! 
but beware of becoming what you study ! 

The Summer Boarder, and the innumerable 
army in which he has descended upon Nan- 
tucket, is still an object of curiosity and doubt 
to the calm and eminently conservative spirit 
of Nantucket. That he is profitable, there is 
no doubt ; and Nantucket gently makes him as 
profitable as possible, by ransacking garret and 
cellar and the top-shelf of the pantry for all 
the broken-legged chairs, cracked-top tables, 
earthen willow-ware, such as our grandmothers 
used in their kitchens, and pressed glass in va- 
rious shapes, — all which articles are greedily 
bought at ludicrous prices by such summer 
boarders as presumably possess no family an- 
tiquities, and have not carried their Keramic 
studies very far. Nantucket is quite right and 



THE SUMMER BOARDER. 213 

perfectly honest, for each purchaser has eyes, 
hands, and should have judgment of his own. If 
he has not, Nantucket has studied the art of 
sheep-shearing for many years, and does it very 
skilfully and pleasantly. 

But Nantucket, like many other gentle and 
silent entities, is very shrewd ; and although 
confessing freely that the Summer Boarder is 
profitable, she perceives and is keenly annoyed 
by such of his faults as touch herself, — as, for in- 
stance, his conviction that money buys every- 
thing, even the Dauphin, and heir-loom silver; 
his intrusiveness, his noisiness and late hours, 
his general air of taking possession in the name 
of *' big I " of what may or may not belong of 
right to *' little u ; " his ignorance of the island 
code of manners and speech, of the respective 
claims of island families and names, of traditions, 
of genealogy, of maritime matters, and of a thou- 
sand *' other things which a Christian ought to 
know and believe to his soul's health." The 
first flight — the heralds of the army of summer 
boarders — were received a few years ago by 
Nantucket with courteous hospitality, and made 
welcome in homes as refined and conservative 
as those of Old Virginia, or Eastern Massachu- 



2 1 4 NANTUCKE T SCRAPS. 

setts generally. "But the Summer Boarder him- 
self soon changed all that; and to-day Nantucket 
is hard to find, and harder to come at when 
found. She has closed her doors about her, and 
either remains very quiet, or entertains her own 
relatives and friends in a rigid exclusiveness 
extremely nice to see. A common form of 
salutation is, — 

** I am so glad to see you ! I never should 
have known you were here if you had not 
called ! There are so many strangers on the 
island that I keep very much at home, and 
depend upon my friends to come and see me 
without formality." 

All this knowledge of the Summer Boarder, 
— sad and heavy as most knowledge of human- 
ity is, upon one side at least, — Mysie found 
written upon her mental tablets, as in the first 
days of September she sat upon Jethro Coffin's 
grave in the Old North Burying-ground, and 
took stock of the summer's gains. So sitting, 
she became oppressed with a crushing sense 
of ignorance as to Nantucket and Nantucket 
people. 

" I have been a Summer Boarder, and they 
have n't let me know them," said she, turning to 



THE SUMMER BOARDER. 215 

Jethro's headstone, which only rephed, '' All men 
must die, and so did I." 

" Yes ; but before / die I will see Nantucket, 
and I will know Nantucket people," retorted My- 
sie ; and with that resolve in mind went home 
next day to Boston. 




SCRAP II. 

REAL NANTUCKET. 




T was early in November that Mysie 
carried her scheme of seeing Nan- 
tucket ** out of season," Nantucket pnr 
et simple , into execution. The contrast to "in 
season" began in finding somewhere to stay ; for 
the very Nantucketers who had most patiently 
entertained the Summer Boarder during his ap- 
pointed period were most resolute in having 
nothing to do with him when that period was 
over. However, the same friendly home which 
had sheltered Mysie as a pure matter of business 
during the summer, at last graciously accepted 
her as a favor during November, — and so that 
was settled. The second difference appeared in 
buying a ticket and inquiring hours of transit; 
for the out-of-season tickets cost nearly twice as 
much as the in- season or excursion tickets, and 
the train and boat no longer made any especial 
effort at connection. 



REAL NANTUCKET. 21/ 

" Decidedly the Summer Boarder finds ad- 
vantages the private individual loses," mused 
Mysie, as she wore away the hours at Wood's 
HoU with a novel, and with such refreshment as 
the station offered in place of dinner. And yet 
the discomfort and solitude filled her with exult- 
ing visions of a Nantucket purified from Summer 
Boarder and no longer impregnable. The boat 
arrived, and Mysie with one lady passenger em- 
barked, without pushing or being pushed, and 
with no unseemly struggle for seats, since ac- 
commodation for a hundred lay at the disposal 
of two. The sea was rough, the wind was high, 
the sky was gray, and the whole forward deck 
was washed with spray; the contrast with the 
summer sea, summer breeze, summer sky, was 
sharp, and to Mysie most cheering. There, were 
repose and idleness ; here, strength and action : 
there, the spectacle of a people to whom work 
is life, and life is work, deliberately turning its 
back on work so far as work means use, and 
giving itself over to the fatiguing and dishearten- 
ing work called pleasure, inducing in the mind 
of the philanthropist a vast pity not unmingled 
with that grim satisfaction even a philanthropist 
feels in the consciousness of superior wisdom ; 



2l8 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

here, on the other hand, were laborers of one 
sort and another, simply using this boat as a 
means of transit to and from their labors with 
no more thought of their conveyance than has 
the artisan who, tin-pail in hand, steps on a 
street-car that he may the sooner arrive at his 
shop. The lady passenger was a Nantucket 
merchant returning home with her winter stock 
of toys and Christmas goods, and in the inter- 
vals of walking the deck, protected by ulster 
and heavy shawl, Mysie sat with her in a sunny 
shelter and discussed island folk and island ways 
very satisfactorily. It was long past dark when 
the melancholy voice of the bell-buoy swaying 
on the heavy sea announced the entrance of the 
harbor, and presently the boat rounding Brant 
Point lay up to her wharf so snugly one might 
fancy she was glad of the shelter and the pros- 
pect of a night's rest. One or two courageous 
hackmen replaced the summer swarm, and Mysie 
was really pleased to think of the surprise she 
must give them in walking off the boat, when 
they could not in the calm light of reason 
have looked for a fare. The old home was 
ready for her ; the sweet old lady, the handsome 
and gracious hostess, and the baby with the 



REAL NANTUCKET. 219 

rose-bud face, each giving welcome in her own 
fashion, and the cosey round tea-table uniting the 
welcome of all. 

The next day Mysie took possession of the 
Nantucket she had seen dimly outlined through 
a fog of Summer Boarder in July and August, 
and found it all that she had hoped, more than 
she had expected. The streets were empty and 
quiet, the few pedestrians briskly going about 
their business ; nobody lounging, nobody look- 
ing in at shop-windows, nobody staring vacant- 
ly about in search of some indefinite wonder. 
Several of the shops were closed, for Nantucket 
people do not buy bric-a-brac, nor care to con- 
template neighbor Folger's old table and andi- 
rons, having similar articles in their own garrets; 
neither do busy people in their own town much 
encourage venders of cakes, candies, ice-cream, 
and peanuts, so that this class of merchants take 
their own holiday during the off-season, either 
going on *' the continent " to visit their friends, 
or retiring into private life and resting in change 
of work. Wishing to buy some sharks'-teeth 
ornaments, and finding the shop where they had 
been displayed closed, Mysie with some diffi- 
culty traced the niarchande to her own home, 



220 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

where she found her engaged in bread-making. 
With the usual kind pohteness of a real Nan- 
tucketer, she left her own occupations and sat 
down to entertain the stranger, whom she treated 
as a guest rather than a customer, giving quite 
an amusing account of the way in which she first 
suggested to some boys of her acquaintance the 
extracting and cleansing of sharks' teeth, "and 
their amazement at finding them merchantable 
articles. She then got them mounted in various 
forms, by a relative of hers, a remarkably gifted 
man, who has succeeded in more, and more 
varied, avocations than one could believe who 
had not studied New England as developed 
in Nantucket. Just now there were no sharks' 
teeth mounted; but if the lady would like the 
teeth as they were, Mrs. F. believed she had a 
few stowed away in a chest up garret. Mysie 
was sorry to give the trouble, etc., but without 
waiting for more the hostess sped away, and 
was presently heard dragging heavy boxes on 
the garret floor, and evidently taking more 
trouble to gratify a stranger's whim than another 
sort of dealer would for a sale of twenty dollars' 
value. In the end she would have given the 
sharks' teeth " and welcome," accepting finally 



REAL NANTUCKET. 221 

merely what she had paid the boy for them, 
•' seeing that it's out of season," — a fact some 
persons would have cited as excuse for a double 
charge. 

Friend James's tin-shop remained open, and 
a cosey seat by the stove proved as inviting as 
the summer airiness and greenery of the place 
had been. What a picture Rembrandt would 
have made of that great rambling shop, with its 
piles of curious dedris, its strong lights and deep 
shadows, and the noble head and stalwart, 
though stooping form of the old man at his 
work beside the window, the pale sunlight on 
his wintry locks, and the shrewd, kindly eyes 
glancing up at the. visitor as he propounded 
some knotty polemical problem or reply. One 
of Nature's noblemen, indeed ; and yet owing 
something, as one must believe, to that careful 
■genealogical chart at home, and the silent con- 
sciousness of responsibility to the past as well as 
to the present. The barber's shop was not closed 
either ; and Mysie, after peeping in at the window 
and seeing the coast clear, entered and had both a 
good look at the fascinating yet terrible picture 
of the Flagellation saved from the burning Italian 
convent, and a little chat with its interesting pro- 



222 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

prietor, who has a story of his own, if he chooses 
to tell it, beginning ** before the war." The post- 
office also was open, and nothing on the whole 
island was so refreshing as to miss the swarm of 
people who in the season pack this place and 
crowd around its doors at mail-time ; those who 
have not a box of their own or a right in some- 
body else's forming two queues, — one of men, 
the other of women ; the latter, as the postmaster 
ruefully affirms, much more unwilling to ob- 
serve other people's rights than the former ; and 
not only here, but everywhere in this our dear 
land of freedom, it is a painful and patent fact 
that women are more lawless, more frankly self- 
ish, and more personally rude to each other 
than men. Perhaps this is one result of the 
universal petting American women grow up to 
receive as their right. No men in the world are 
so thoroughly chivalrous to women, irrespective 
of age, condition, or attractiveness, as American 
men ; and it is really touching to see, and to 
prove by travelling alone through- the rougher 
and less cultivated regions of our States, how 
men the rudest, the least refined, and sometimes 
the least respectable from a severely moral 
standpoint, will put the woman's safety, com- 



REAL NANTUCKET. 223 

fort, even whims, before their own correspondent 
needs, not as a sacrifice, but quite as a matter 
of course. Foreigners of various nationahties 
are more deferential and poHshed of manner, 
no doubt; but if a woman alone and unpro- 
tected in an emergency needs advice and cham- 
pionship, let her seek it at the hands of first an 
American, next an Englishman. The first will 
give it as he would to his sister; the second, as 
to a helpless creature he is bound to protect, 
but from whom he hopes no claims of acquain- 
tanceship will accrue unless a proper introduc- 
tion can be subsequently obtained. 

And, coming back to the point by way of a 
curve, this habit of being petted, has made its 
mark upon American women, developing cer- 
tain charming characteristics of confidingness, 
t frankness, and the desire to please, and certain 
very uncharming characteristics of exactingness, 
petulance, indolence, and an assurance of man- 
ner piquant and delightful in some cases, intol- 
erable in others, — especially perhaps in a queue. 
Well ! spoiled children have their charms and 
their faults, and it is quite just that they who 
spoil them should be the sufi"erers. 

Pursuing her investigations, Mysie discovered 



224 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

that Dionis was laid up in ordinary for the win-- 
ter, her dismal shriek giving place to the wintry 
wind howling across the moors in prophecy of a 
storm. 

*' How do you get to Surf-side without the 
railroad?" inquired she of an ancient and fish- 
like wanderer around the deserted station. 

*' Same way as we did afore we ever see a 
railroad," replied he, with a friendly grin : 
" foot it, or hire a team, or get a lift in some- 
body else's." 

The wharves had an oddly deserted look, and 
the dark waters leaped higher about them, pre- 
paring for the winter storms, in which they often 
rise and take back the territory man has stolen 
from them. All the pretty yachts and row- 
boats filling the harbor in season had disap- 
peared, safely housed until spring; wood-piles 
and other wharf lumber were cleared away lest 
the sea should clear them, as it occasionally 
has done; the doors of warehouses and offices 
looking upon the harbor, which had been in 
summer so pleasant and hospitable a resort, were 
closed ; and the " warm men " of Nantucket 
gathered about the stoves inside, smoking many 
pipes, and telling slow, garrulous stories of the 



REAL NANTUCKET. 22 5 

old time, or uttering oracular prophecies con- 
cerning the new. 

The Captains' Room was flourishing with 
even more vivacity than in the summer; for 
closed doors, a good fire, and less of life in the 
streets conduced to increased sociability. 

Passing by the Custom House one day, soon 
after twelve o'clock, the hour when the captains 
dine, Mysie was invited to view the Captains' 
Room, and stepped in with a good deal of the 
feeling of the girl in the fairy story, who went to 
keep house for the big bear, the little bear, and 
the least bear of all. Not that the captains are 
bearish of demeanor, — not in the least so ! But 
they are big and burly and hirsute as a rule, and 
this room is their own exclusive domain. Ex- 
cept, however, a very heavy atmosphere com- 
pounded of tobacco, boots, and wet woollen 
clothes, there was nothing at all terrible in the 
Captains' Room ; four-and-twenty roomy wooden 
arm-chairs stood about the floor, a few prints of 
favorite vessels hung upon the walls, as the por- 
traits of beloved racers in a horsey man's apart- 
ment, or pictures of the saints in that of a devotee ; 
a big stove stood in the midst of a Sahara of sand 
in the middle of the room, and the wintry sun 

15 



226 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

shone in at some of the four windows in a reck- 
less, jolly sort of fashion quite peculiar. 

The representatives of the ancieii 7'egiine tell 
you that in the palmy days of Nantucket, 
when she was the third important port of the 
United States, and her hundreds of ships poured 
gold by the bushel into the quiet coffers of her 
wealthy men, there was another club- room called 
" The House of Lords," where the captains did 
not presume to enter unless summoned, for this 
was the resort of the owners and controllers of 
the whaling interest, — men who said to a cap- 
tain, " Do this," and he did it. But the whales, 
the whalers, the owners and their wealth have 
all passed away together, and the *' House of 
Lords " has become but a memory and a regret; 
while the hard-handed old captains, each with 
his snugly invested little fortune and his otiinn 
cum dignitate, survive, and keep up their club 
with all the ponderous joviality of better times. 

It was Mysie's privilege, in these autumnal 
days, to be admitted to many homes and to 
talk with many persons whom the Summer 
Boarder may not hope to reach ; and the quiet 
perfume of antiquity and conservatism hanging 
round both homes and persons was like the 



REAL NANTUCKET. 22; 

scent of dried roses in a long-closed cabinet, or 
of box-plants in a still summer noon as one 
saunters through the old, old garden of a de- 
serted country home. A charming lady, quick 
and bright, and full of anecdote and reminis- 
cence, in spite of many years and very frail 
health, made her welcome both at her house in 
town and at her cottage in Sconset, where she 
drove out to pass the few days of St Martin's 
summer, unusually soft and bright this year. 
And here Mysie would pathetically protest 
against the popular error of styling every warm 
day after September I the Indian summer. No, 
dear friends, you really must not yield to this 
temptation ! it is doing despite both to tradition 
and the calendar. The Indian summer is the 
old English St. Martin's summer, and dates from 
his feast of November 1 1. A few days' grace 
one way or the other may be allowed for the 
arrival of th'at delicious week; but it cannot, it 
never did, it never will, come in September or 
October. Cest tine affaire finie ! 

To this dear and gracious lady Mysie referred 
the stories her mother had told her of Nan- 
tucket fifty years ago: its hospitality and 
gayety, and its severity of Quaker discipline, — 



228 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

all mingled so harmoniously. And with the 
strange thrill of one who suddenly discovers 
that a familiar parchment is a palimpsest, and 
carries another story under the familiar charac- 
ters, she heard yet fuller details of her mother's 
girlhood, of the dances and the squantums, and 
the moonlight drives in the box-wagons (then 
Nantucket's only carriages), and the love affairs, 
and jealousies and quarrels, rising from nothing 
yet ending in the dividing for all time of two 
hearts, as fond and foolish, as weak and strong, 
as the hearts of youth and maid to-day, of any 
true lovers who have madly flung away their own 
happiness within the last four-and-twenty hours. 

Going home in the frosty moonlight after an 
e\>ening with this friend, Mysie felt as if she car- 
ried a bouquet of pansies, rue, and rosemary, 
plucked from a beloved grave. But every visit 
was not like this ; and many a merry story and 
many an interesting reminiscence this lady had 
in store, and freely gave to the visitor, who 
still, Oliver-like, cried '* More ! " 

Another old lady, whom everybody called 
Grandma, was an inexhaustible treasury of an- 
ecdote and history, and had such a vivid and 
dramatic way of telling her stories that one felt 



REAL NANTUCKET. 229 

as if the whole scene were passing before one's 
eyes. Her husband had been a captain, and all 
that she said had a strong sea-flavor, augmented 
by a great many maritime phrases, as natural to 
her as ordinary English to most of us. One of 
these stories will never again be possible on 
Nantucket, for its factors have passed away. It 

is this : — 

Toward midnight of one of those summer 
evenings when the darkness seems to become 
a palpable and oppressive substance, one of 
Grandma's relatives arrived at the house with 
news that there was sudden illness in his family, 
and her presence was much desired. She im- 
mediately rose and began to make ready, when 
the young man added that he still must go for 
the doctor, but would come back if needed and 
escort her; but the brave old lady scoffed at the 
idea of escort or protection being needed, and 
after a while set out for her walk of a mile and a 
half into the lonely outskirts of the town, pick- 
ing her way among the cobbles and sand-ruts 
of'^the way by aid of a lantern. She had not 
gone very far from the centre of the town when 
a curiou-s sound attracted her attention, growing 
louder and more distinct, yet less inteUigible, at 



230 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

every moment. Pausing and listening intently, 
she grew more and more puzzled ; it was not the 
distant beat of the surf upon, the South Shore, it 
was not the wash of the tide sweeping around 
Brant Point, it was not the plaintive note of the 
bell-buoy, nor the rustling of leaves in Neigh- 
bor Coffin's garden, and yet it resembled all of 
these. And every moment increased both sound 
and mystery. 

*'Why did n't you turn and run home as fast 
as you could go?" asked Mysie, at this point of 
the narrative. Grandma regarded her in mild 
astonishment. 

" What should I want to do that for? Nan- 
tucket women ain't brought up to run away, any 
more than their men are. No, I just kept up 
as near the town as I could ; for I knew if there 
was any trouble I could hail the watchman and 
have help, and the night was so still he 'd be sure 
to hear ; and I knew there were n't any Indians 
left except poor old Quary, and I never zvas 
afraid of spirits. So I kept along, singing a hymn 
and wondering if the Newtown road had n't been 
pieced out somehow and I never heard of it. 
But fast as I walked the noise came closer and 
closer, and by and by it was close behind, and 



REAL NANTUCKET. 23 1 

out of the corner of my eye I could see some- 
thing white that kept ranging up alongside and 
then dropping out of sight, until at last it came 
close to, and a cold wet touch on my hand made 
me drop my lantern. Luckily it did n't go out, 
and I picked it up before it hardly reached the 
ground, and faced round swinging it over my 
head and calHng out, ' Come on, and show your 
colors, whoever you be ! You can't scare me.' 
There was n't any answer just at first, but I 
could see that the whole road behind and on 
each side of me was full of white things surging 
up and down, just like the breakers out on the 
Rips; and for a minute I felt — well, a little 
queer, maybe ; but before I had time to get 
scared, the old fellow heading the fleet gave 
back my hail with a * B-a-a-a ! ' that most took 
me off my feet. Then I just stood there and 
laughed ; and if I had got a little excited over 
it all, the good laugh carried it off and left me 
as calm as a clock." 

"But who were they, after all?" asked Mysie, 
bewildered. 

"Who were they?" repeated Grandma, impa- 
tiently. " Why, 'twas the Town Flock. Some- 
body had left the Newtown gate open, and the 



232 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

Town Flock had come in same as they always 
did when they got the chance, to look after the 
neighbors' gardens and fodder stacks ; and then 
seeing my lantern swinging along, they thought 
maybe it was some one coming to feed them. 
Or — nobody can tell what they thought; only 
if a sheep sees anything bright and glittery he '11 
run after it; and where one goes another will fol- 
low, until the last of the flock don't even know 
w4iat they 're running after, — just following on 
because the rest do. There 's folks like that 
in some parts of the world, I 've heard." 

'' I 've heard so, too. And how did you get 
rid of your followers?" 

*' I did n't. I hurried some after that, and they 
came pattering along close beside and behind 
me, until I turned in where I was going. There 
was a garden in front of the house, and a nar- 
row walk up through it, with a low fence each 
side ; the first sheep came along up the walk 
and up the steps till their noses touched the 
door itself; and as many more as could crowded 
in after, but luckily they did n't think of jump- 
ing over the fences into the garden. So the 
last thing I saw as I went in was this long, 
narrow strip of white, coming up from the 



REAL NANTUCKET. 233 

road, and the road itself full of ghosts as far as 
I could look. I bid them all a kind good-night, 
blew out my lantern, and went in; and once in, 
I found a plenty to think about besides sheep, 
so I did n't say anything. But next morning, 
when I went home, I smiled to see how the 
dusty road was all marked up with little hoof- 
prints ; somebody had driven them out and shut 
the gate before that, however." 

Naturally, after hearing this anecdote, Mysie 
was interested in the sheep question, and found 
it one of the integral portions of Nantucket's 
history. The moors, or *' commons," as they are 
popularly called, are especially adapted for sheep- 
grazing, both in a positive and negative sense, — 
the short, dry herbage making particularly fine 
mutton, and the soil seeming incapable of rais- 
ing anything else. Hence, from the earliest 
days, sheep have been a specialty of Nantucket, 
and a source of wealth rivalling the whale. To 
thoroughly elucidate the sheep question is re- 
served for some Macaulay, Carlyle, or Macken- 
zie of the future, for it involves not only the 
chief land-industry of this remarkable island, 
but its chief political economy, its municipal 
struggles, its angry passions, its still smoulder- 



234 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

ing feuds, its family quarrel decently guarded 
from the stranger's eye. Suffice it to say that 
the moors were once owned in common, any 
man using them for grazing ground as he would ; 
and subsequently they were nominally divided 
into shares, each shareholder having the. right to 
graze a fixed number of sheep without bound- 
aries. There were several favorite pastures for 
these flocks, one of them lying just outside the 
part of the village called Newtown ; and here a 
gate was placed across the road to keep what 
was called the Town Flock from coming in and 
devastating the gardens by night. Beside this 
gate also stood the only gallows ever erected on 
Nantucket, and here the solitary execution took 
place ; the culprit was an Indian, taken red- 
handed in the act of murder, and whether the 
gallows was a salutary terror to the sheep as 
well as the Indians is not mentioned in history. 
The Indians soon died out, but the sheep in- 
creased and multiplied until they were counted 
by thousands ; and for a century or so an idyllic 
and pastoral Shearing Feast was kept by the 
entire population, who, on the first Monday in 
June, migrated to the ponds near the western 
end of the island, whither the sheep had been 



REAL NANTUCKET. 235 

previously driven up and penned. Miacomet 
Plain, with its chain of ponds, — one of them still 
called Washing Pond, — then became for three 
days an encampment of tents and booths, where 
busy matrons and merry girls cooked such savory 
dishes as were at that time dear to the island 
epicure, or set forth those daintier viands pre- 
pared at home. The fathers, husbands, broth- 
ers, and sweethearts meantime washed the sheep, 
lightening their labor with a great deal of rough 
play and many practical jokes arnong themselves, 
and returned them to the pens to dry until next 
day, when the shearing began ; and let us be glad 
Mr. Bergh was not obliged to watch its progress, 
since seldom did a sheep escape his shearer's 
hands without one or more patches of tar to 
show where the scissors had gone deeper than 
the fleece. The next thing was to re-brand 
each animal with its owner's initial or emblem ; 
and then the shearing was over, and the encamp- 
ment broke up, the lads and lasses finishing out 
the holiday with a surreptitious dance in town, — 
for these were the days of Quaker supremacy, 
when dancing, music, cards, and most modes of 
amusement were strictly forbidden. But like 
most efforts to suppress human nature, these 



236 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

laws were only fully honored by those who had 
no longer the temptation to break them ; and 
the young Quakers danced, sang, and frolicked 
in their generation very much as their too-lib- 
eral descendants do to-day. 

A little poem, from the collection previously 
quoted, gives a vivid picture of the simple and 
pastoral pleasures connected with the shearing- 
season, and may be preserved as a memorial of 
scenes forever passed away : — 

THE HARPER. 

BY C. F. B. 

Old Ocean's stormy barrier passed, 
The Harper gained the beach at last ; 
He seized his harp, he leaped ashore, 
He played his wild refrain once more, — 
The same old sixpence, " tew and tew," • 
Echoed the shores of bleak Coatue : 
'T was " tew I can't, and tew I can," 
All the way to the shearing-pen ! 

Onward but not unheeded went 
The harper old ; his form was bent, 
His doublet wool, his hose were tow, 
His pantaloons cut so-and-so : 
The people gazed, the coofs admired. 
And many stranger things transpired ; 



REAL NAXTUCKET. 23/ 

Coppers from many a hand were wrung 
As, wading through the sand, he sung: 

'T is " tew I can't, and tew I can," 

All the way to the shearing-pen ! 

The streets are passed, the plain is reached . 
Whose uniqueness was ne'er impeached, — 
Dearer to him than Marathon, 
Or any plain beneath the sun ; 
Dearer by far than hymns or psalms. 
The bleating of those new-born lambs ; 
Dearer than all that homespun strain 
The harper wildly sings amain : 

'T is " tew I can't, and tew I can," 

All the way to the shearing-pen ! 

The harper seats him 'neath a tent 

Made of a mainsail patched and rent ; 

The curious folk, of every hue, 

Looked on as though they 'd look him through. 

He signifies his mad intent 

To drink — of the hmpid element ; 

He eats a large three-cornered bun, 

And then, his slight refection done, 

He takes his harp, and plays again 

The same mysterious wild refrain : 

'T is " tew I can't, and tew I can," 

All the way to the shearing-pen ! 

Soon as the harper old appeared 
A ring was formed, a space was cleared ; 
Three maidens clad in spotless white. 
Three nice young men, all dandies quite,' 



238 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

Impatient for the dance are seen 

On the brown-sward, — some call \t green. 

No light fantastic toes belong 

To any of that joyous throng, 

They 're all prepared to reel it strong. 

The harper rosins well his bow, 

The very cat-gut 's in a glow, 

With " tew I can't, and tew I can," 

All the way to the shearing-pen ! 

The sheep are sheared, the reel is done, 
The harper back to coofdom gone ; 
My lay is closed, you '11 think it meet, — 
Pleasures are always short when sweet; 
'T was so when first the world begun, 
'Twill be so when the world is done. 
Who was the harper ? what his strain ? 
Wait till you hear him play again : 

'T is " tew I can't, and tew I can," 

All the way to the shearing-pen ! 

1844. 

But the serpent of variance invaded this 
pretty pastoral, as he mostly does all pretty 
scenes ; and it was gradually perceived that 
many proprietors of the common land pastured 
a great many more sheep than they were en- 
titled to, and a good many pasturers were not 
proprietors at all. Ten thousand sheep were 
too many for the pasturage at any rate^ and 



REAL NANTUCKET. 239 

while every year the flocks Increased, the feed 
diminished. In this emergency, the legitimate 
shareholders proposed to abolish the privilege 
of the commons, and let every man enclose his 
portion if he would; or, if not, remove his 
sheep. Here was the Apple of Discord thrown 
upon the municipal Board with a vengeance; 
and from the hour of its first appearance to 
some few years back, that bitter fruit sufficed to 
feed the whole island. The bitterest opposers 
of the measure were naturally the men who 
either owned no land at all, or who had so 
overstocked it as to convert their innocent white 
sheep into the blackest of pirates ; but there 
were also a good many just and legitimate pro- 
prietors who thought there might be some way 
discovered of roasting the pig short of burning 
the house down, and who disliked giving up 
an institution of two centuries' existence. The 
quarrel raged with all the personality and vir- 
ulence characterizing family differences, when 
everybody knows just where everybody else's 
shoe pinches; but in' the end the reformers car- 
ried the day, the sheep were killed or exported, 
the Shearing Feast was unhonored, the moors 
became yet lonelier than their wont, and Mia- 



240 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

comet Plain and the ' Washing Pond retained 
only the ticks still abundantly pervading that 
favored locality to remind one of the gay scenes 
so long enacted there. A large source of profit 
was thus cut off from the island ; for, as one of 
its best men quaintly remarks to-day, " Just let 
me graze as many sheep as I like on the com- 
mons, and I '11 take care of Robert." A small 
compensation is found in the fact that the flora 
of the island, which remained in strict abeyance 
under the close cropping of the sheep, has since 
their removal started into wonderful profusion 
and brilliancy, — many flowers before unknown 
blossoming abundantly, and many others form- 
erly only found in certain localities and limited 
supply, now rioting fearlessly on every side. 
Probably the visitors who seem to consider the 
island as their own freehold prefer the present 
condition of things, only regretting that the 
sheep did not carry away the ticks as well as 
the wool. 

One of the charms of Nantucket is her old 
people : a large party of octogenarians might be 
gathered, and a very fair company of those who 
have counted their ninetieth birthday. To sit 
quietly down with one or more of these old 



REAL NANTUCKET. 24I 

people, and beguile them into telling their ex- 
periences, especially when one flatly contradicted 
another, and thus evolved little details and cor- 
roborative circumstances, was one of Mysie's 
dear delights; and she will for the rest of her 
life luxuriate in the consciousness of knowing 
a great deal more than she means to tell about 
Nantucket. *' Don't spoil a story to save a 
friend" is one of the basest of maxims if seri- 
ously taken ; and every guest is more or less 
bound over to secrecy, if the repeating of what 
he sees and hears would wound the tenderest 
susceptibilities. That this rule should so often 
have been disregarded, even by such writers 
as Dickens, TroUope, Bremer, and some of more 
recent date and less note, is a disgrace to the 
guild of authors, and shall not be continued in 
this instance. So, although like Scheherezade, 
Mysie knows far more wonderful things than yet 
have been told, honor forbids her to mention 
them except in a very limited fashion. 

Here for instance is a story told all over the 
world, although true only of Captain Barnard 
of Nantucket, who, after standing all the inso- 
lence he could from the profane officer of a craft 
trying to crowd him out of his place at the 

16 



242 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

wharf, stepped to the hatchway and called to his 
less scrupulous mate : " Obed ! I say, Obed ! 
just step on deck, will thee, and use some of thy 
unadvised language to this blasphemer ! " 

A similar story is told of another Quaker cap- 
tain afflicted with a profane mate, who frequently 
complained that his usefulness was impaired by 
the restrictions laid upon his tongue by the 
master. On one occasion, the schooner com- 
manded by this scrupulous yet shrewd Friend 
arrived in port at. low tide, and so deeply loaded 
that she could not come up to the wharf for 
some hours. In this emergency the mate pro- 
posed to the '' old man " that they should go 
ashore and report themselves at their respective 
homes, promising to come down himself and 
move the schooner at the proper time. 

" Thee '11 want some one to help thee get up 
the anchor, Zimri," said the captain,/' for boy 
Samwel is not strong enough. Thee 'd better 
get Nathan Folger, and take care that thee 
does n't let slip any folly before him." 

'' I '11 get a fellow that won't look sideways 
at anything I 'm o' mind to say," replied Zimri, 
confidently, and the captain walked away with- 
out another word. About the middle of the 



REAL NANTUCKET. 243 

night, when the young flood was two or three 
hours old, he left his house and quietly walked 
down to the foot of Straight Wharf, where, en- 
sconced behind a pile of lumber, he could see 
and hear all that went on. The night was calm 
and still, but rather dark, for there was no moon ; 
and although the schooner was plainly visible, 
the captain could not make out how many men 
were working the capstan, whose creaking was 
mingled with violent expostulations in Zimri's 
voice, of so oddly profane a nature that the 
master's chastened lips could hardly restrain a 
smile, — perhaps did not. 

The language, unhappily, is not of a nature to 
be written down, whereby the reader loses a 
good deal of enlightenment upon the curiosities 
of profanity ; but it mainly consisted in exhor- 
tations to more vigorous effort in heaving the ' 
windlass, mingled with reflections upon the par- 
entage, nationality, and moral character of the 
person addressed. The captain listened to this 
for a while, and then began to wonder why the 
other party made no response, although Zimri 
often seemed to catch up his words as, *' Heav- 
ing all you can, d' y' say, you etc ! Then 

poor is your best, and y 'd better run home 

to your mammy, till you 've set some muscle." 



244 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

*' Now, if ZImri has got that \vithy boy Samwcl, 
and is making him do man's work and Hsten 
to profane words, verily I shall be righteously 
indignant," murmured the captain, straining his 
eyes through the darkness. *' Whoever it is, 
he should henceforth be called Moses," contin- 
ued he, presently. " For truly only the meekest 
among men could patiently endure such re- 
marks, especially as concerning his mother." 

But now the anchor was apeak, a piece of the 
mainsail hoisted, and the schooner came floating 
slowly up to the wharf The captain shrinking 
closer within the shadow peered curiously out, 
resolved to know what man so meek, or boy so 
unlucky, Zimri had found for his assistant, and 
framing various reproofs to be administered upon 
the morrow. The mainsail fell, the decks were 
apparent, the schooner rounded gracefully to the 
vv'harf, just grazing the piles without rubbing, 
and Zimri hastily running fonvard to secure her 
nose to his favorite post, audibly exclaimed : 
*' There, Zimri Starbuck, you 've got her in all 
by yourself; and your feelin's aint hurt a mite 
by all the cussin' and swearin' you 've stood, be 
they, old man? " 

Yes, he had done it all by himself; and the 



REAL NANTUCKET. 245 

terrible abuse and profanity were only the safety 
valve of the extra steam put on for the occa- 
sion. The captain rubbed his eyes, and softly 
pursed his lips as if to whistle in making this 
discovery, but never asked Zimri how he had 
eot the schooner to the wharf; nor did he in 
future listen too attentively when any very hard 
job was in process with the mate in command. 

During a slight illness at Nantucket, Mysie en- 
joyed the ministrations of an old nurse, whose 
reminiscences, personal, ancestral, and social, 
were most amusing. In her parlor hung a por- 
trait painted in France, of considerable merit 
in itself, and depicting the merry yet resolute 
countenance of her ancestor Captain Kelly, — a 
commander famed in Revolutionary annals for 
his audacity and contempt of odds. One story 
told by his descendant, with so much verve and 
fire that one felt the same blood indeed coursed 
in her veins, was how, during the Revolutionary 
v/ar, Kelly, in a swift, light-draught schooner, 
arrived off Nantucket deeply loaded with pro- 
visions, seed-corn, and other necessaries of life, 
all desperately needed by the islanders, whose 
few possible ports were so rigorously blockaded 
by an English frigate that a threatened famine 



246 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

was Upon them. Kelly knew his' enemy right 
well, and knew too that in an open encounter 
one broadside would sink his little schooner, 
consign him and his men to a foreign prison, and 
snatch from the very grasp of his townsmen the 
food of which they stood so sorely in need. 

These considerations made him prudent, al- 
though nothing could make him timid ; and he 
accordingly fetched so large a compass in ap- 
proaching the island that he made out the position 
of the frigate some time before she discovered 
him, and was able to keep out of sight until, 
wind and tide both favoring him, he suddenly 
clapped on all sail, put the little racing schooner 
upon her best point, and audaciously slipped up 
and past the frigate, which, like a man in con- 
troversy with a woman, did not get ready to re- 
ply to this impertinence until the occasion had 
passed. As soon as she could get round to it, 
however, she started in pursuit, and presently 
hailed Kelly to lay to and surrender, or he would 
be sunk. Kelly made no reply except an extra 
pull on the sheets fore and aft, and an anxious 
look over the side at the rapidly shoaling water. 
The breathless watchers in town had by this time 
caught sight of the chase, and word was carried 
from house to house, — • 



REAL NANTUCKET. 247 

*' Kelly 's coming into harbor with every rag 
of canv^as set, and the British after him like — 
Hail Columbia!" 

Fancy how the " walks " on the house-tops 
w^ere crowded, and how men with frowning 
faces, and women with hungry children and 
empty larders, watched that chase, and how 
Kelly's own people held their breath, for it 
was life and . death for them. It is the fashion 
to say that we live faster than our ancestors, 
but not many of us have known so vivid an 
hour as that. Well, the frigate fired, but the 
shot flew harmlessly over the low decks of the 
schooner; and now she had reached the bar, 
and not six feet of water lay between her keel 
and the sand. She was safe from actual cap- 
ture, and almost out of range of the limited 
artillery of those days ; and then Kelly, drawing 
breath and taking his eyes from the sails, ordered 
his own one gun fired, not in any hope of mis- 
chief, but in pure bravado and rejoicing, — very 
much as- a Bantam cockerel, who has driven an 
astonished mastiff out of the barnyard, mounts 
the nearest rail and crows loud and long. So 
Kelly fired, and loaded and fired again, until he 
reached the wharf; or as near as he could come, 



248 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

and his townsmen replied to his salvo with 
bravoes as exultant. But already the frigate's 
boats were pulling with might and main to cut 
out the schooner before she should anchor ; 
and, failing in that, hallooed an angry demand 
that schooner, cargo, and men should be im- 
mediately surrendered and towed out as a lawful 
prize to the British crown. 

The precise terms in which this demand was 
answered are not recorded, but it is feared they 
were neither polite nor kind. At all events the 
frigate did not insist, and the schooner was un- 
laden in a marvellously short space of time, 
and Nantucket celebrated her victory with an 
abundant supper. 

The old people have also much to tell of the 
peculiar social relations existing in their day 
among the girls and boys. 

School friendships were not then what they 
became later, for school was no very important 
part of life in those days, both girls and boys 
being expected to take their share of the labors 
of life much earlier than now, The boys, many 
of them, were put to learn the cooper's trade as 
a sort of general preparation for a whaler's life, 
and at about fifteen or sixteen years of age 



REAL NANTUCKET. 249 

generally made their first voyage as *' boy " 
before the mast of one of the many whalers 
then crowding the bay. The girls meantime 
helped their mothers in the house, and learned 
to spin, weave, knit, and sew, as well as to attend 
in the absence of their fathers and brothers to 
many outside duties. Sets of these young peo- 
ple, drawn together by neighborhood or social 
ties, combined in what they called ** gangs," 
each little society keeping very much within 
itself, and meeting every evening for w^hatever 
fun might be suggested. In summer these meet- 
ings were in the streets, on the wharves, or any- 
where out of doors, but in the winter a w^arm 
fireside was desirable. As the presence of elders 
was not an object, it became quite important to 
discover whose mother was going out to spend 
the evening; and one can easily imagine how 
often an indulgent matron would find it con- 
venient to take her knitting and run in to 
neighbor So-and-so's for a chat, leaving the 
kitchen bright and warm for the '' gang," who 
hardly waited for her back to be turned before 
they filled the place with the laughter, songs, 
and merry gibes forming the usual intercourse 
among these vigorous young sea-folk. On one 



250 " NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

occasion the '' gang " to which the narrator be- 
longed was in despair : nobody's mother Was 
going out. The evening was cold and stormy, 
and the girls were threatening to return home, 
when as all stood huddled together at Ham- 
matt's Corner, the usual rendezvous, a meek 
and overgrown lad, not one of their company, 
came lounging past, and Hannah Gar'ner whis- 
pered to Pelatiah Coleman, — 

" There 's Jacob Mayo ! He was casting 
sheep's eyes at my cousin Lovicy last First day. 
Now if he 'd go see her to-night, her mother 
would make a fire in the fore-room and sit 
there w^ith 'em for a while before she went to 
bed." 

** Hannah, thee 'd ought to command a three- 
decker," exclaimed Pelatiah, admiringly; and 
following Jacob with elaborate carelessness he 
inquired what that young patriarch proposed 
doing with himself. Jacob did not know, and 
Machiavel then suggested, — 

'' Lovicy Gar'ner 's at home to-night, and she 
sets store by thee, — any fool may see it. Why 
don't thee go and sit up with her? " 

''Does thee think she likes me, Pelatiah?" 
demanded Jacob, much flattered. " Why, then, 
I think I '11 go." 



REAL NANTUCKET. 25 I 

Heartily applauding this decision, Pelatiah 
walked along with his victim, the '' gang" follow- 
ing at a discreet distance, until they had seen 
him pull the string which in those days raised 
the latch of every house-door in Nantucket, and 
then they huddled about the windov/ to peep 
and listen. Lovicy, a pretty girl somewhat older 
than the *' gang," sat demurely knitting beside 
the fire, while her mother, great round spectacles 
on nose, patched her boy's trousers at the table. 
Jacob, looking rather foolish, was seated between 
the two, gazing into the fire and twiddling his 
thumbs. Presently the mother, mindful of the 
etiquette demanded by the occasion, cleared her 
throat, and said, — 

".Lovicy, thee'd better light the fire in the 
fore-room and take thy company in there. It 's 
all laid, thee knows." 

The ''gang" outside poked each other, the 
girls cramming their shawls and the boys their 
fists into their mouths to suppress a roar of 
laughter, whil^ Lovicy, meek and silent but very 
red, did as she was bid, disappearing for a few 
moments and then returning with, — 

" Will thee walk into the fore-room, mother 
and Jacob? " 



252 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

Jacob rose at once, but the mother paused and 
looked meditatively at the fire. 

'' If she rakes it out ! " — muttered Pelatiah. 

But Hannah calmly responded, ** Then we '11 
rake it in again." 

But the fire was well burned down, and so 
little likely to snap that the prudent housewife 
was content to leave it to burn out, and pres- 
ently followed the " company " into the fore- 
room, to give his visit the sanction of her 
presence for a short time and then retire. 

Hardly was the door closed behind her, when 
the latch of the outside kitchen door was silently 
raised and the '' gang '* crept in on tiptoe, their 
broad smiles alone manifesting their satisfaction 
at the success of their strategy. Still in silence 
the fire was replenished, and gathering close 
about it the young marauders began a whis- 
pered chat, or, as it was universally called, a 
"gam," which after a while evoked so many sti- 
fled bursts of laughter that they, or the snap- 
ping of the fire, reached the ears of, the mistress, 
who suddenly opening the door of the fore- 
room exclaimed, — 

** Well, of all the impudence ! " 

But a chorus of gay apologies and petitions 



REAL NANTUCKET. 2 S3 

for hospitality drowned her voice, and the 
'' gang " finished their evening with the usual 
innocent hilarity. 

On another occasion, two girls of this same 
gang wxre strolling aimlessly about in the twi- 
light, and found a stray hen roosting upon a 
fence. A small demon of mischief suggested 
that this waif might be regarded as public pro- 
perty, and become lawful salvage to the first 
finder. Skilfully seizing poor biddy by the 
legs, Sally suggested, — 

** Say, Betty, let's carry this hin up to Becky's 
and have a hin-chowder. She and I '11 make it, 
and you go round and find some of the gang to 
come and eat it." 

Betty agreed ; and Sally muffling the " bin's " 
head in her shawl, sped along the lanes until the 
two stood outside the window of Becky's abode 
and peeped in at the kitchen window. There 
sat Becky by the fire to be sure, but near her 
sat Reuben Hussey, a grave and sedate youth, 
who was understood to be preparing for the min- 
istry, and was rather an object of awe to the 
revellers of Becky's company, although she her- 
self was evidently inclined to feel honored by 
his attentions. 



254 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

" There *s Reuben Hussey," whispered Betty, 
" and he '11 spoil all our fun. Let 's give it up, 
Sally." 

But Sally was of bolder mettle, and, Avithout 
waiting for argument, opened the door and 
walked in, the hen under her arm. ** Well, 
Becky," began she, " I 'm glad you had n't gone 
on a cruise, for we 've got a hin ; and we 're go- 
ing to make hin-chowder, and get some of the 
girls and boys to come and help eat it." 

*' That 's right ! " exclaimed Becky, with spark- 
ling eyes. But Reuben interposed with the 
austere question, — 

*' Where did the hen come from? " 

** A fence," replied Sally, boldly. 

"Whose fence? " continued the incipient elder. 

" Indeed, then, how should I know, Reuben 
Hussey? It's round Seth Chase's lot; but 
whether it's Seth's fence or the town's fence I 
can't tell. Had n't you better step down and 
find out, while w^e make the chowder?" 

But Reuben was not to be put off with any 
impertinent subterfuge like this, and having sat- 
isfied himself that the hen was stolen, delivered 
such a scathing rebuke to the two culprits, with 
a sort of codicil addressed to his betrothed, that 



REAL NANTUCKET. 255 

she subsided with tears and begged the girls-to 
take themselves and the " hin " away and leave 
her in peace. Considerably discomfited by this 
reception, although Sally retorted upon Reuben 
with a fair show of success, the two girls turned 
away from Becky's house and walked slowly back 
toward Seth Chase's lot; but as they passed a 
little tumble-down hut where a dim light showed 
habitation, Sally stopped and w^iispered, — 

" I don't care a hake's head for Reub Hussey, 
and I won't carry the old hin a step further. 
I'm going to give it to old Granny Murdoch. 
She can cook it or she can keep it, as she 's o' 
mind to; but here goes." 

So saying the wild girl crept up to the door, 
softly raised the latch and peeped in. Granny 
Murdoch with her paralytic old husband sat 
crouching over a little fire, feebly gossiping away 
their evening, and never noticing the opened 
door; until Sally with a suggestive crow flung 
the hen high into the air, w^ience it descended 
with the peculiarly musical outcry of a frightened 
fowl, while Sally and Betty rushed away in the 
darkness. 

These somewhat dubious amusements and gath- 
erings continued with each successive " gang " 



256 NAATTUCKET SCRAPS. 

of young folks until the boys were old enough 
to go to sea; and when on his second or third 
voyage a young man sailed as harpooner (or, as 
it was generally styled, harpoonr^r), he almost 
always carried with him the promise of one of 
his early playmates to become his wife as soon 
as he could claim a second-mate's berth, and a 
"lay," — that is, a proportion of the profits of 
the voyage. The promised wives of these absent 
lovers naturally became more sedate than the 
unbroken " gang" of the earlier years, and their 
meetings were devoted more to the comparing 
of the spinning and weaving achieved toward the 
trousseau, or talking over the latest news from 
the Pacific, or some new recipe for cookery, or 
at worst to secret expeditions to the wigwams of 
the old Indian fortune-tellers then extant, but 
who after a while fell into serious disgrace and 
trouble with the town authorities, who did not 
wish a repetition of the Salem witchcraft trials 
upon their island. 

But all this order of things underwent a rapid 
and total change in the decay of the whale 
fisheries, about 1848. The men and lads of 
Nantucket sought voyages from foreign ports, 
and in many instances married and raised their 



REAL NANTUCKET. 257 

families there as well. California absorbed a great 
many, and the war, as has before been told, drew 
away almost all that was left of the young man- 
hood of Nantucket. . The girls no longer found 
admirers or husbands among their own kindred, 
for the intermarriages of two centuries had made 
the whole island cousins, and it had become ne- 
cessary to specify an individual as '' Paul's Han- 
nah," or " Zimri's Ned," the family names being 
so universal as to convey no distinction of per- 
sons. The choice seemed to be to establish a 
new community, like St. Ursula's eleven thou- 
sand virgins, or to abrogate the unwritten law 
which had, since the settlement of the island, for- 
bidden a high-caste Nantucket maiden to m.arry 
a coof, no matter how respectable. The Nan- 
tucket maidens chose the latter alternative, — 
that is, generally, although some appear to pre- 
fer St. Ursula ; but very many find homes upon 
" the continent," and carry their sound health, 
cheerful spirits, and clear minds to vivify the 
torpid blood of more luxurious circles. 

Already the old things have passed away 
from this whilom peculiar place, and the older 
people find no consolation in the renewal of 
material prosperity brought by the summer 

17 



258 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

visitor to Nantucket. Like the impoverished 
noblesse of the Faubourg, they make no open 
opposition to the Empire and its wealth, — they 
will even treat it with civility, but never, never 
with cordiality ! 

One of the most remarkable interviews granted 
to Mysie was with the last survivor of the 
"Essex," that famous whale-ship which in 18 19 
was wrecked by the vengeance of a whale, — 
the Von Winklereid of his people, since he sac- 
rificed his own life to avenge its wrongs. The 
old man told his story in the subdued and mo- 
notonous tones of age, looking back at its inci- 
dents across an interval of sixty years filled with 
events almost as absorbing ; yet told it with such 
accuracy of detail and such personal reminis- 
cence throughout, that one seemed to stand be- 
side him on the deck and watch that strange sea- 
fight, — see the monster rise, view the ship with 
his " wicked little eye," and then make straight 
for her quarter, dealing a blow that stove in 
planks and ribs as if they had been an egg-shell. 

The skeleton of the story is, that the *' Essex " 
cruising in the South Sea sent out her boats 
to attack a school of whales ; each boat se- 
lected one, as is the custom, and were widely 



REAL NANTUCKET. 259 

separated, when a monstrous whale, not himself 
an object of pursuit, suddenly turned upon one 
of the boats and demolished it with a single 
blow. Leaving the wreck and the struggling 
sailors, most of whom managed to keep afloat 
until the other boats came up and rescued them, 
the whale made for the ship, where the narrator, 
then a boy, remained on deck; after striking his 
first blow, he dived, and came up again almost 
under the bow. ** If I 'd only had a lance, and 
time to get my wits about me, I could have 
giVen it him right in the eye. I 've always been 
sorry that I had n't," said the old man, a spark" 
of the ancient fire gleaming from his own eyes 
and his right hand clenching nervously. But it 
was only a ** might have been," and the whale, 
sweeping round with a great curve to get a good 
offing, came down again upon the other bow of 
the devoted ship, crushing in the side and killing 
himself with that last terrific blow. The boats, 
already returning, reached the ship in time to 
save some little provision and other articles be- 
fore she sank, leaving her crew of twenty men 
crowded into two little boats, with no proper 
means of navigation, with very slight provision, 
and at an unknown distance from land. 



26o NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

The details of that voyage are too terrible to 
be lightly named ; it lasted for three months, 
and included two thousand miles of space. One 
after another of the men died, of exposure, of 
starvation and of its direst resource, until at the 
last, when even the boy, who with the tough elas- 
ticity of healthy young life had endured while 
men in the prime of life died, had so far lost 
his senses that he could not clearly remem- 
ber the incidents of his rescue, they drifted 

across the track of the only vessel they had seen, 

• 

were taken aboard, and nursed back to life with 
that tenderness so sure to be found among 
sailors, and indeed among most other brave and 
simple men under such circumstances. Eight of 
the twenty survived that three months' terror, 
and in course of time came home to Nantucket, 
where they had long been mourned as dead. 
But the experience had left its mark, and they 
never were the same men again ; the captain 
especially, although he lived for many years, 
went about as a man who carries a secret 
burden which cannot be revealed. He never 
spoke of the wreck of the " Essex " himself, 
and if others did in his presence he always rose 
and left the company. And in fact this feeling 



REAL NANTUCKET. 26 1 

was shared to some extent by every one of the 
survivors, — even this the last of all, who seldom 
vouchsafes, they say, so much of a story as this 
which he gave most kindly to the stranger, who 
felt more sympathy for the ineffaceable suffering 
he so modestly narrated than she liked to show. 
But to repeat one tithe of all the merry, sad, 
or wonderful stories Nantucket can tell if she 
will, is impossible in this place, and we may as 
well stop here at once. Many have tried to con- 
serve these legends in various forms, and with 
varying success ; for it is very difficult, even 
though one set down the exact words of the 
narration (and this would be in itself a breach 
of confidence), to inspire them with that piquant 
flavor of personal experience, or that keen 
relish of ancestral association which animates 
a true Nantucket "yarn" from the lips of a 
Nantucket narrator. After all, like the most 
luscious of fruits, or the most suggestive of wines, 
or the ideal of teas, they must be enjoyed where 
they are grown, for they will not endure trans- 
portation without such loss as deprives them of 
their value ; and stay-at-home travellers must be 
content to know that such things are, and that in 
some happy future they too may enjoy them. 



SCRAP III. 

THE LIFE-SAVING STATION. 



^BOUT the middle of November a tre- 

M/§^(^ mendous easterly storm, with enough 

soutnmg" m it to brmg" the surf m 



mm 



splendidly all along the South Shore, raged for 
two or three days, and in the end of it some 
kind friends proposed to take Mysie over to see 
the breakers. Dionis, as has been said, had re- 
tired to nurse her asthma and her temper in the 
engine-house for six months or so, and the island 
had comfortably returned to its time-honored 
modes of conveyance, represented on this occa- 
sion by Deacon Folger's spirited brown horse, a 
nice carry-all, and plenty of robes, — for already 
the air upon the moors had all the savage nip 
of December in its teeth, and the best armor 
wherewith to meet it might be the wadded suits of 
the poor Aztecs at whose battle array of *' polka 
jackets " one sadly smiles, remembering the end. 
The wind blew rough yet merry defiance, and 



THE LIFE-SAVING STATION. 263 

the sun gleamed out as it could from the wild 
scurry of clouds driven about by ^Eolus very 
much as a wicked dog drives a flock of sheep ; 
the good brown horse pricked up his ears and 
whinnied appreciation of the fun, the carriage 
rocked and bounded across the frozen ruts, the 
three women laughed and chattered, and the one 
man instructed and corrected them in manly 
wont: altogether it was a very pleasant time 
both in passing, and in memory. 

The Life-saving Station is a place of mys- 
tery and speculation to the summer visitor, 
who never sees it inhabited or in use, such 
persons as choose to wreck themselves in sum- 
mer being attended to by volunteer life-pre- 
servers ; but it was now open, and quite ready 
to save as many lives under as difficult cir- 
cumstances as could be devised. The party 
in the carry-all considered their lives, or at 
any rate their heads, in danger from cold and 
high wind, and so drove boldly up to the door, 
tied and blanketed the brown horse, and un- 
packed themselves. During this process the door 
opened, and a good-natured giant standing upon 
the threshold gazed silently upon the invaders. 
*' May we come in and warm ourselves a 



264 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

little?" asked the most daring of the women, 
their escort being obscured by the tossing head 
of the horse. 

'* Why, cer-tainly you may ! Come right in ! " 
replied the giant, evidently considering the que- 
ry to convey doubt of the Station's hospitality. 
Coming right in, the party found themselves 
in a cheery sort of place, evidently kitchen 
and parlor and hall in one. A cooking-stove 
stood in the middle of the room, and a sugges- 
tive odor of coffee and something of a fried 
nature hung about the walls, inducing Mysie to 
think affectionately of tea-time and blue-fish in 
the near distance. Five or six men out of the 
eight belonging to the place were seated about 
the room, and all rising with the almost invaria- 
ble courtesy of American men to women brought 
forward their chairs, made up the fire, suggested 
that the ladies should put their feet in the oven, 
and finally slid out of the door in an accidental sort 
of way, leaving one very pleasant and intelligent 
man to do the honors of the place, and another 
w^ho after a pause calmly went on with his domes- 
tic labors, too much of a man to be ashamed 
of doing woman's w^ork when required. 

While enjoying the warmth and rest, the visi- 



' THE LIFE-SAVING STATION.- 26$ 

tors gleaned from their host some interesting 
details of the life here. A hard one he did not 
deny, and a monotonous one, and yet not with- 
out its attractions to a hardy man whose interests 
and associations are all of the sea. The day- 
duties are not laborious, consisting only of keep- 
ing the apparatus in perfect order and readiness 
for immediate use, and in maintaining that clean- 
liness and tidiness quite characteristic of the 
dwellings of men without women, — as ships, 
light-houses, barracks, and prisons. There is 
never much grace or daintiness in these places 
to be sure, but they are usually wonderfully 
clean, and, as the English say, *' done up." 

But at sunset the life-saving station-men's 
real duty begins. Two start out in opposite 
directions and patrol the beach for a distance 
of three miles, looking and listening for signals 
of distress at sea or any possibly shipwrecked 
mariner on shore ; returning to the house, this 
pair of patrols is relieved by another, and they 
by a third, — so that for a distance of six miles 
along that dangerous coast there are two men 
upon the beach from sunset to sunrise, all 
vigilance and courage for whatever danger may 
appear. Sometimes of course this is no hard- 



266 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

ship, except the loss of sleep ; but sometimes 
again it is a close hand-to-hand tussle with such 
cold and storm and blinding snow as have con- 
quered many a man strong and brave as these. 
Sometimes the wind sweeping along the beach 
gathers up the frosty sand and hurls it in the 
face of the struggling man so violently and con- 
tinuously as to cut through the skin and draw 
blood; often he must close his eyes lest they 
be blinded, and sometimes turn his back for 
a moment lest he be suffocated : one thing 
he must not do and never does, and that is 
to desert his post, or fail to accomplish his 
beat. 

** A man should be well paid for work like 
that," remarked the gentleman of the party. 

*' We have four hundred dollars and our keep," 
replied the guard, quietly. Mysie thought of 
men she knows who receive two and three thou- 
sand dollars per annum from Government for 
coiling and uncoiling red tape in luxurious 
offices for a few hours in the middle of the day, 
and felt an enormous respect for this brave, 
uncomplaining, ill-paid man. At sunrise the 
patrol duty is over, and until sunset is substi- 
tuted by a look-out man in the "walk" at the 



THE LIFE-SAVING STATION. 26/ 

top of the house. With a glass he can from his 
elevated station sweep a wider expanse of ocean 
than a boat could reach, and it is not necessary 
to be "on deck" every moment; so this part 
of the duty is not very uncomfortable, although 
Mysie and her friends were satisfied with quite 
a brief inspection of this airy locality. From 
the ''walk," the steep stairway descends into the 
dormitory, where the eight men enjoy their 
broken slumbers, and where are stored cables, 
life-lines, signals, and other paraphernalia of 
the service. Among other things Mysie was 
interested in a board bearing an inscription on 
both sides, the one in French, the other in Eng- 
lish, directing whoever should read it how to 
manage the cable to which this board would be 
attached, by means of a smaller line which was 
to be shot out over the wreck from one of the 
mortars below stairs. Of course, viewing the 
matter argumentatively, a French mariner would 
be more likely to read French than any other 
language with ease ; and yet the instinct of an 
Anglo-Saxon is to wonder that a man in peril 
of his life should pause to attend to polite lit- 
erature ! Another objection to the board arose 
in Mysie's mind, and she uttered it aloud : — 



268 '^NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

" Suppose the wreck were a German vessel, as 
so many of your wTecks have been, and nobody 
on board could read either English or French?" 

" That would be bad," replied the guard, con- 
templating the bit of plank seriously on both 
sides. " It's a pity it has n't three sides to it; 
but that's hardly to be expected." 

Going downstairs again, the visitors passed 
from the living room into the largest and most 
important room of the house, fitted with wide 
rolling doors looking upon the sea, — for here 
are arranged in perfect order and readiness the 
life-boats on their carriages, the mortar for shoot- 
ing a line across a wreck, cables, coils of rope, 
two or three kinds of life-cars and slings fitted to 
traverse a hempen bridge from the wreck to the 
shore, rockets and blue-lights for signals, in fact 
everything that philanthropic science and inge- 
nuity have invented for this service. It was a 
beautiful and hopeful sight in all its details, — the 
eight powerful and quiet men, the sturdy house 
with its firm hold upon that wind-lashed head- 
land, and the complete yet simple parapherna- 
lia of their duty. Nor do these preparations at 
all come into the list of charming possibilities 
never reduced to certainty, by which the present 



THE LIFE-SAVING STATION. 269 

inventive century is overloaded. The records 
of Nantucket make mention of something over 
five hundred wrecks upon her stormy coasts, 
and indeed a careful circumnavigation of the 
island shows her surrounded by the bleaching 
bones of her slain, even as the fair palaces of 
the ogres of our childhood's lore were at once a 
temptation and a warning to the prince-errant. 
Very few of these wrecks, however, have suffered 
unaided, and although hundreds of lives have 
been lost, hundreds more have been saved, 
and often at greatest peril to the rescuers, who 
have more than once or twice laid down their 
own lives for their brothers. This is a large 
and most thrilling history, and w^ell worthy the 
research of various classes of students; for here 
are combined history, romance, the study of 
noble human nature, and of that nobler, super- 
human nature, wherein man by self-sacrifice be- 
comes united in Christ to God. 

These stories cannot here be repeated, but 
beside the living and generally too modest actors 
in these scenes there are several records, such 
as *' A List of the Wrecks around Nantucket," 
by A. H. Gardner, and a brief chapter in God- 
frey's " Nantucket Guide," an excellent little 



2/0 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

resum^ of the history and attractions of the isl- 
and, pubHshed in 1882, besides Obed Macy's 
*' History of Nantucket," a somewhat antiquated 
but careful and reliable work not yet superseded 
by anything newer. 

Mr. Godfrey prints in his '* Guide " a letter 
from Captain John Niven, of the ship '* Earl of 
Eglinton," wrecked off Tom Never's Head in 
1846, giving a minute account of the catastrophe, 
and almost incomparable for its simple elo- 
quence, modest bravery, and wonderful realism ; 
after reading it one really tastes the salt upon 
one's lips, and feels exhausted with the fearful 
struggle. One sentence is so quaint that it shall 
be quoted : " The last person," and this was the 
captain himself, although he does not say it, 
"coming on the running bowline nearly lost his 
life, the sling parting and dropping him in the 
surf But one gentleman added another to his 
humane attributes by perilling his life to save 
that of another; so that finally, more dead than 
alive, and with reason for the time taking a re- 
cess, the half-drowned man was landed." 

The hero who thus offered his life to save that 
of a stranger, — and if "gentleman" means the 
highest development of man, let us call him gen- 



THE LIFE-SAVING STATION. 2/1 

tleman, — was Captain Matthew Crosby, since 
gone to his reward, with this deed but one of 
many similar gHttering upon his record. " Ev- 
ery one loves a lover," may be ; but, oh, every 
one exults in a hero, and is proud of the com- 
mon tie of humanity ! 

After this, the little party went down upon the 
sands to watch the surf, really wonderful in its 
height and force, while the whole -sea beyond 
was white with the tossing manes of the war- 
horses ; and out on the Rips the spray leaped up 
and fell again in a cataract of splendor, as the 
sun gleaming out between angry black clouds 
shot his arrows through and through the fall- 
ing prisms, and nearer at hand burnished the 
concave of each arching breaker with a golden 
sheen too dazzling to contemplate. 

What a pity such pictures can never be copied 
upon canvas ! 





SCRAP IV. 

SCONSET FROM THE INSIDE. — WHALES AND 
CAMELS. 

HE wind which produced such sublime 
effects of sea and sky scenery also 
brought in the cod, and news came from 
Sconset that the fishing had begun. Now was 
the time for that reality of Sconset which Mysie 
had vainly sought under the superincumbent 
mass of Summer Visitor, and she accordingly 
petitioned her friends to take her over to Scon- 
set and drop her there, quite irrespective of their 
own ■ ideas of advisability and comfort. They 
complied ; and again the brown horse and the 
carry-all of furs and femininity rattled and rocked 
across the frozen moors, and driving into Scon- 
set drew up near the pump, which makes the 
centre of the town. " First tableau of the De- 
serted Village," remarked one of the party 
drearily; but Mysie saw the beginning of the 
fulfilment of her dream, and exulted in spirit. 



SCO.VSET FROM THE INSIDE. 2/3 

" Not a flounce, or a furbelow, or a seaside 
costume, or a yachting dress, or anything got up 
for marine effect, — not even a batliing-house, or 
awning, or hammock to be seen ! " exclaimed 
she blithely ; *' actually the plank walk across 
the sands is taken up, and the bathing-line has 
disappeared ! " 

" I should so remark ! " replied the masculine 
element of the group. *' Not many people would 
care to venture into that surf, especially in this 
temperature." 

"Nobody, I should think," replied Mysie with 
much satisfaction. " Now the next thing is to 
find me a shelter." 

It is a poor rule that won't work both ways, 
and the winter rule of Sconset is a very good rule, 
and it does work both ways, as Mysie now dis- 
covered ; for while in summer two large hotels 
and nearly all the cottages of the hamlet are of- 
fered to the public not only willingly but eagerly, 
in the winter it is all but impossible for an unfor- 
tunate coof to find shelter or welcome. The hotels 
are closed, the families who took boarders have 
either gone *' to town " for their own recreation, 
or are resting from their labors and annoyances, 
and loathe the face of a summer visitor ; the 

iS 



2/4 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

fishermen who let their cottages during the hot 
weather have now resumed them, and wish for no 
intrusion on their privacy ; the private cottages 
belonging to down-town aristocrats are closed, 
and although one might be borrowed in the time- 
honored neighborly fashion of Nantucket, it is 
not a thing to be done in a moment. The appli- 
cations at house after house met with but one 
answer, *' ISTo," variously expressed, but however 
softly always immovably. One charming old pa- 
triarch, evidently moved to pity by Mysie's for- 
lorn appearance, thought his daughter might con- 
sent to receive her, and pending the daughter's 
return from town showed her the quaint and most 
attractive interior of his cottage ; but when the 
daughter returned it was to repeat the village re- 
frain of No, no, no ! adding with some asperity, 
that she should have supposed her father would 
have known better than to encourage any such 
idea. The patriarch, rather dashed, here sug- 
gested a possible refuge ; and the daughter seizing 
upon this as a happy escape added her hearty 
recommendation. So, with rather a drooping 
crest, for really this was the very last hope left 
in Sconset, Mysie, followed by her merry friends, 
who had all along prophesied that she would 



SC ONSET FROM THE INSIDE. 275 

have to go back to town discomfited, knocked 
at the side-door of a large house built by one of 
the magnates of the whaling era for a country- 
villa, and now the property of the most purely 
representative Nantucket man left on the island. 
The door was opened by a fair-faced, kindly 
woman, who, after hearing the stereotyped re- 
quest for a few days' hospitality, considered the 
applicant in meditative silence for a moment, 
and then said pleasantly: "Why, yes, you can 
stay, if you want to ; it don't seem just right 
that any one should go away and say there 
was n't a single house in Sconset where they 
could get a night's lodging." 

Chanting paeans of triumph in her heart, 
Mysie received her bag from the carriage, bade 
good-by to her companions, and entering the 
house begged leave to sit beside the kitchen 
stove while her hostess prepared the evening 
meal, and discoursed most pleasantly upon 
Sconset life and experiences. An island woman 
of the Folger stock, and married to a Coffin, 
she had passed most of her life at Sconset, and 
was certainly one of the best possible exponents 
of its character. From her Mysie learned that 
a few families, not more than half-a-dozen gener- 



2/6 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

ally, consider Sconset their settled home, winter 
and summer, and cultivate among themselves 
those neighborhood interests, amusements, and 
kindly services which are so much stronger in 
small communities than in large ones. Was 
it very lonely in the depths of winter? Oh, 
no, there was seldom weather when, the women 
could not run over to each other's houses, and 
somebody or other would go down town two or 
three times a week and get the newspapers and 
the letters, if there were any; and there was 
always plenty of work to do, and some reading 
and music and games of one sort and another, 
so it was n't lonesome. A school-mistress is 
provided by the town, and a little flock of girls 
and boys of all ages is gathered in the weather- 
beaten school-house, whose one room also serves 
as church, lecture-hall, and concert-room when 
such rare diversions as lecture or concert are 
offered to Sconset. There is no resident min- 
ister, any more than doctor or lawyer ; so reli- 
gious services are rare and promiscuous during 
the winter, and Sconset folk seem beautifully re- 
signed to the deprivation. The want of a lawyer 
has probably been still less felt, — Mysie herself, 
as will be shown, being the only person on record 



SCONSET.FROM THE INSIDE. * 2// 

who felt it a necessity to reach one without delay ; 
and as for a doctor, when Sconset people wish 
to die they have to go down town, disease and 
decay fleeing from the strong salt breeze, active 
exercise, and " early bed " pervading Sconset. 
However, there are occasions when a doctor is 
considered desirable ; and one old lady told My- 
sie a most picturesque story of her husband's 
setting out in the fury of a northeast storm in 
the depth of winter and of night, to fetch a 
doctor. She tied down his hat herself with a 
big bandanna handkerchief, and she saw that 
his great-coat was buttoned and his good yarn 
mittens upon his hands ; but for all that, it was 
with a quaking heart that she heard him drive 
away, even the old horse rebelling against such 
an expedition. The goodman soon lost the 
road, and this was before the modern landmarks 
had been established ; so the old horse and he 
bumped about upon the moors a pretty while, 
only knowing they were in a road when the in- 
creased bumping suggested ruts, until at last 
after several hours the sailor catching sight of 
Brant Point Light, and having Sankaty Light 
on his weather beam, steered his way into town 
and arrived there quite independently of any 



278 • NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

other, man's course. The gray dawn helped the 
return voyage, but by the time the doctor ar- 
rived the invaHd had been so much benefited by 
kindly neighbors as not to need his services. 

Darkness fell long before Mysie had exhausted 
her companion's fund of information, the lamps 
were lighted, and Mamie — a shy, sweet child of 
ten breezy summers — came in, and at once made 
friends with her future godmother, who found 
her a most useful little guide and companion in 
the ensuing days. 

Then came the cosey tea-time, and then My- 
sie, relegated to the sitting-room, made the ac- 
quaintance of her host, — a Coffin of the pure 
blood ; a strong shoot from the hardy old Nan- 
tucket stock of fearless, powerful, and modest 
men, who have left their heroic record in every 
quarter of the world. 

From him she heard many marvellous tales 
of wreck and storm upon this southern shore, 
— adventures '' all of which he saw, and much of 
which he was," and yet told in the quiet and 
reserved fashion of a man who would fain give 
the story fully, and yet suppress his own share 
of it. 

Among these tales was one of the great 



SC ONSET FROM THE INSIDE. 2/9 

steamship *' City of Glasgow," which after a 
stormy passage ran short of coal, and lying to 
off Sconset sent a boat ashore requesting a 
supply of a hundred tons. Naturally Sconset is 
not provided with a coal-yard, as no vessel that 
could possibly do anything else would think of 
demanding coal there; but the ''City of Glas- 
gow," requiring ten tons even to start a fire un- 
der her boilers, had no choice but to lie there 
until the ten tons could be furnished. To com- 
plicate the matter, this was just the period of 
one of the heaviest falls of snow recorded of 
Nantucket, and the seven-and-a-half miles be- 
tween Sconset and town were buried in drifts 
ten and twelve feet deep. This in a sledging 
country would not have mattered, but Nantucket 
travels on wheels, seldom having occasion for 
runners, and the hundred tons of coal demanded 
had to be carted from town. The first thing, 
therefore, was to dig down to terra firma and 
make a road, and this was done rapidly and well ; 
then the procession of little carts began, and the 
hundred tons of coal were in due time at the 
edge of the surf. But the *' City of Glasgow " 
lay almost a mile outside, and barges stanch 
enough to reach her drew too much water to 



280 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

come within several rods of the shore ; so the 
coal must be taken off to them in the little fish- 
ing-boats and dories which sHde so deftly up 
the beach, but which hold so small a cargo. 
Thus the shipping of the hundred tons was not 
the least part of the work, and the men worked 
waist-deep in the icy water, and thought less of 
it than other men do of dampening their feet. 
At last all was aboard, the captain of the " Glas- 
gow" paid the price of his coal, with ten. dol- 
lars per ton for teaming, and went his way to 
New York, a sadder and a wiser man. 

After this there were Californian experiences 
to tell, and some stories of the war and other 
adventures, until Mysie felt a mental indigestion 
coming on, and, as her hostess advised, took an 
early bed, and slept the sleep of the hardy ex- 
plorer. 

Early the next morning, with Mamie as com- 
panion and guide, she went down to the beach 
to see the fishing-boats start off. The season 
had not opened well, and many of the fishermen 
did not think it worth while to go out ; but there 
were some twelve or fifteen boats drawn up at 
the water's edge, their noses pointed seaward, 
their sharp, narrow frames promising speed, 



COD, WHALES, AND CAMELS. 28 1 

their deep keels stanchness, their tackle and 
bait ready at hand, their crews of one or two 
men grimly cheerful in the prospect of four or 
five hours of cold, wet, and the horrible roll of a 
boat anchored or lying-to in a heavy sea. The 
boats off, Mysie turned to watch a sort of Tri- 
ton gathering kelp and loading it into a one- 
wheeled conveyance very like a cart-body 
mounted upon a flour-barrel, — a wheel cer- 
tainly better adapted for a soft, sandy beach 
than the ordinary make. 

Some children with baskets came scurrying 
down before the wind like a flock of sand- 
peeps, and began to pick up the carrageen ly- 
ing abundantly along the beach. *' Unlimited 
blanc-mange ! ' I would not live alway ' in Scon- 
set," remarked Mysie, confidentially to herself; 
but the little maids evidently did not share her 
aversion to this innocent comestible, for they 
were comparing notes of how much each one 
could and did eat at a sitting whenever the 
opportunity occurred. 

Walking briskly across the beach and up 
through the village, — for spite of heavy ulster 
and many wraps the cold was very cruel, — My- 
sie found her host, and gained much information 



282 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

about the fishing. The spring fishing-season 
comprises April and May; the autumn, Novem- 
ber and part of December, and varies in profit 
year by year. The one or two men who man 
each boat expect in a '' decently good time " to 
take from ten or fifteen up to a hundred or even 
more fish, — cod if possible, hake and haddock 
as a second choice. On one occasion three men 
brought in six hundred fish, and it was necessary 
that every one should be cleaned and salted be- 
fore morning; the men worked all night until, 
as the narrator said, he went to sleep standing 
at his bench, — but the work was done, and well 
done. 

There is a prejudice in the fastidious yet un- 
enlightened mind against salt codfish as an arti- 
cle of diet. Mysie confesses to having lived 
under the shadow of this prejudice, and is not 
pleased when her friends in other cities mention 
codfish as Boston's usual diet; but she hereby 
confesses that there is codfish and codfish, and 
that Sconset codfish properly cooked are a very 
different article from what one encounters in 
our rural districts for instance, or sometimes in 
a city boarding-house. 

These Sconset fish are a most elaborate con- 



COD, WHALES, AND CAMELS. 283 

fection, and worthily command a higher price 
at wholesale than the ordinary "■ Banks " fish at 
minutest retail. 

The former are no sooner brought ashore than 
they are taken to the fish-houses, — odorous 
temples at the head of the beach, — and are at 
once split, cleaned, and deprived of half their 
backbone to facilitate a more rapid drying; 
they are then washed through two waters, the 
black skin of the nape taken ofi", when they are 
salted and piled in a kench, heads and tails. 
This kench is a peculiarly shaped pile of fish 
upon a platform elevated a foot or so from the 
ground. Here they remain from four to eight 
days to drain off what is called the '* bitter 
water," or natural juices of the fish. Each fish 
is then well scrubbed on both sides with a brush, 
and if the sun is bright they are laid out upon 
the fish-flakes to dry for a day ; next they are 
piled in kench for another day, and so go 
through an alternation of flakes and kench until 
they take on a certain mealy or floury appear- 
ance, when they are fit to store in a dry place 
and become the 7ie phis tdtra of their kind. 

The ordinary salt codfish prepared by the 
Cape Cod fishermen are caught upon the Banks 



284 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

from schooners fitted out for the purpose. The 
fish as soon as caught are spht, cleaned, and 
thrown into the hold, where they are piled upon 
forms and salted, one tier after another, until the 
hold is full. The schooners are often out for 
weeks, and the condition of the lower layers of 
fish need not be enlarged upon. Arrived in port, 
the fish are pitched into a car alongside, and 
scrubbed promiscuously with a broom; they are 
then pitchforked ashore and dried in a stack. 

But, alas ! how is the fish-ball consumer ever 
to know if his codfish was a Banker or a Scon- 
seter ! 

After dinner, in pursuance of her determina- 
tion to know the Sconset people, Mysie made 
some calls, — one upon a cheery old whaling- 
captain who showed her the picture of his 
former vessel, with all the pride of a fond 
mother showing the portrait of ''the most re- 
markable child, as everybody says, that they 
have ever seen." The adventures connected 
with this vessel were even more interesting 
than itself; and the old captain^ at Mysie's re- 
quest, went through the whole process of captur- 
ing a whale, from the "There she spouts ! " of the 
lookout man in the crow's-nest, to the cutting 



COD, WHALES, AND CAMELS, 285 

in the blubber and trying out the oil. There is 
a popular tradition that whale-men in the dearth 
of fresh meat at sea are fond of eating the 
brown morsels or ** scraps " of the blubber after 
the oil has been thoroughly extracted; and 
hence their jealous neighbors and rivals, the 
Cape-Coders, gave them the name of Nantucket 
"Scrap-eaters," or Nantucket "Scraps,"^ — an ap- 
pellation answering to " Yankee," or "' Hoosier," 
or '* Buckeye," or .any of the rest of those playful 
nicknames by which Uncle Sam's big boys love 
to tease each other, all in love. and good-will. 
Some of the Nantucketers deny the taste for this 
luxury, and, if one may quote from a popular 
author, "■ deny the allegation and scorn the alle- 
gator ; " but others confess it, — and one frank 
and genial gentleman, not now resident upon 
the island, assured Mysie that he with the other 
school-boys of his day thought it a great treat 
to provide themselves with plenty of sea-biscuit, 
and going down to the try-works when some 
good fresh blubber had been brought ashore, 
beg the scraps as they were skimmed out. 
" Yes, indeed, many 's the good lunch I 've made 

1 The intelligent reader may hereby gain a new conception 
of the title of this humble work. 



286 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

that way ! I wish I had the appetite and the 
digestion for it now," said the senor, sadly, as 
he finished the story. 

From the captain's, Mysie went to see an aged 
couple, claiming to be, with one exception, the 
oldest permanent residents of Sconset The 
husband, a sailor from his boyhood, had seen 
and made intelligent acquaintance with the 
scenes and the dangers of almost every quarter 
of the globe. He talked freely, and gave a vivid 
account of his boyish longings for the sea, 
sternly repressed by his father, who wanted his 
services on the meagre farm they cultivated 
here at Sconset. 

At length one day, as he and his father Avere 
cutting peat in a deep bog-hole, the boy's desire 
took the form of a resolution ; and without any 
explanation of his intentions he clambered out 
of the hole, struck straight out across the moors 
for town, and finding a whaler just ready to sail 
went to the office and enrolled himself as **boy," 
coloring the story of his leaving home to suit 
the taste of the owners. So soon as his name 
was down he went aboard, and with a boy's far- 
seeing wisdom considered the thing finished. 
The father coming home to supper and finding 



COD, WHALES, AND CAMELS. 287 

Valentine missing, was at no loss to conjecture 
what had become of him, and next morning 
arrived on the scene of action. Like a sensible 
man, however, he concluded that what was to 
be, might as well be sooner as later, and pro- 
ceeded to supply the runaway with a *' kit " 
and all those comforts and even necessities of 
which he had not thought. The father's parting 
words partook, however, more of paternal stern- 
ness than maternal tenderness. 

" You 've had your way, young fellow, and 
you 're bound off; you won't be sorry but once. 
Good luck t' y'." 

'* And were you sorry?" asked Mysie, breath- 
lessly, hoping he would say 7iever ; but slowly 
shaking his head, the old man replied, — 

" I rather guess I was, ma'am ; and it begun 
before I was out of sight of land, and it lasted 
till I reached old Nantucket again, — a matter of 
three years. I don't suppose a boy ever goes 
to sea, especially in a whaler, but what he is 
sorry ; and mighty few would ever go the second 
time, only they daresn't stay at home for fear of 
getting laughed at. Once in a while there has 
been one that give up after the first voyage, 
but I was always sorry for 'em. Folks never 
let 'em forget it." 



288 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

" ' The world's dread laugh,' " murmured My- 
sie, and the old wife sitting by, remarked, — 

"That's like the old song we used to sing 
when I was a girl : ' Don't think you 're at your 
ease, my boys.' " 

" What is that? Won't you sing it for me?" 
asked Mysie; but the old lady laughed and 
shook her head, — 

" My singing days are over as well as my 
dancing days ; but I might tell you a few of the 
verses, maybe." 

" Do, and let me write them down," exclaimed 
Mysie, delighted ; and with many pauses for 
memory and many consultations with the smil- 
ing husband the dame repeated these lines, 
graphic enough in their way, and very popu- 
lar, as she said, with the girls and boys of her 
especial " gang " in her youth : — 

" Come all young men, both far and near, 
That sail the briny seas : 
When you 're on board of a whaling ship 
Don't think you 're at your ease, my boys, 
Don't think you 're at your ease. 

" When first you leave your native shore 
You spread a crowd of sail, 
Clear off your decks, one man aloft 
To look out for sperm-whale, my boys, 
To look out for sperm-whale. 



COD, WHALES, AND CAMELS. 289 

" The Western Islands first you make : 
If you 've any luck meanwhile, 
You '11 get a whale off the Cape de Verdes 
Will make your owners smile, my boys, 
Will make your owners smile. 

" We cross the Line and pass the Banks 
Where the winds blow high and low, 
To double Cape Horn where there 's many a storm 
And many a bitter blow, my boys, 
And many a bitter blow. 

" ' One man aloft,' our captain cries, 
' To keep a sharp look-out ! 
Look all around on every side 
For breaches, hump, or spout, my boys, 
For breaches, hump, or spout! ' 

"' There she blows ! ' is the cry from our mast-head. 
And it is a pleasant sound ; 
* There 's a large sperm-whale off our lee-beam, 
And to wind'ard she is bound, my boys, 
To wind'ard she is bound.' 

*' * Lower away your boats ! ' next is the cry, 
' Your davy-falls let go ! 
Shove astarn ! Shove astarn ! 
Ship out your oars. 

And down to the whale we '11 go, my boys, 
And down to the whale we '11 go ! ' 

" And here we are 'long-side the whale, 
The bold harpooneer stands by, 
He darts his craft, and fastens well : 
Then, ' Starn all ! ' is the cry, my boys. 
Then, ' Starn all ! ' is the cry. 
19 



290 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

" Our whale she starts, and to lu'ard runs,. 
And after her we go. 

'Haul the line ! Haul the line, now, every man ! 
We '11 give her her death-blow, my boys. 
We '11 give her her death-blow I ' " 

But here, unfortunately, the memory of the 
raconteiise failed, and she could only recall frag- 
mentary lines, describing the mortal plunge of 
the lance, the whale's death-agony, the towing 
alongside, and the cutting in the blubber. Per- 
haps it is as well not to have these verses, since 
few persons not positively connected with the 
matter could find much pleasure in contemplat- 
ing the painful death of any creature, or would 
be able to take a proper interest in the oleagi- 
nous *' blanket" enveloping the poor dead thing, 
its removal and trying out. The old sailor in 
his turn gave a graphic account of opening the 
well of spermaceti in the head of the sperm- 
whale, and ladling out the contents in buckets, 
the drippings from which hardened as they fell 
upon the bulwarks or deck into the snow-white 
flakes familiar to those who aesthetically prefer 
candle-light to cleanliness. 

But some of us have read all we wish of these 
things, both in the text-books we unwillingly 



COD, WHALES, AND CAMELS. 29 1 

pondered in childhood and in the marine tales 
we eagerly devoured in adolescence, and we 
will perfume the subject with a little ambergris. 
What fragrant and delicate associations arise as 
one speaks or hears that word ! Keats, Porphyro, 
and St. Agnes Eve ; recollections of the *' Ara- 
bian Nights," sultanas, odalisques, everything 
heavily oriental ; dim, magnificent cathedrals, the 
heavy white clouds of incense rolling out and 
enveloping the worshippers, and floating to the 
frescoed roof, — all this and more, a great deal 
more. Just say " ambergris " two or three times, 
shut your eyes, and, like the Marchioness with 
her punch, '' make believe very hard," and you 
will see what delicious delusions arise to your 
brain ! 

Well, a sensible, plain-spoken, most interesting 
gentleman down town, among much other valu- 
able information, told Mysie precisely what am- 
bergris is, where it is found, and its raisojt d'etre. 
She is not a very sensible or plain-spoken per- 
son herself; she is fond of her own delusions, 
and has a tender respect for those of other per- 
sons. So she will not repeat her information, 
and does not advise her readers to ferret it out, 
but to content themselves with learning, that> 



292 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

about the year 1859, the schooner "Watchman" 
captured among the West India islands a srnall 
and emaciated sperm-whale, yielding only six 
barrels of black oil, but by way of compensation 
presenting his captors with a lump of ambergris 
weighing two hundred and fifty pounds. Only 
one hundred pounds of this was fully matured, 
but the mass was bought by a well-known drug- 
gist's firm of Boston for the pretty little sum of 
ten thousand and twenty-five dollars ; and My- 
sie's informant, who was one of the fortunate 
owners of the " Watchman," remarked that he 
was as much surprised at learning the value of 
ambergris as anybody else could ever be, and 
that to his mind it was the vilest stuff he ever 
handled. 

Some other interesting details of the whaling 
epoch were gathered, partly orally and partly 
from a printed list of all the whale-ships ever 
sailing out of Nantucket; and as a little history 
of many of them was added to the vessel's name 
and statistics, this book was like the dictionary, 
*' very good reading, except the pieces were 
rather short." 

The first whalers, as we are informed, not only 
in this catalogue but in everything everybody 



COD, WHALES, AND CAMELS. 293 

has written about Nantucket, were boats rowing 
out from shore whenever the men on one of 
the look-out stations along the beach '' observed 
a whale," — and in those days the poor confid- 
ing whales were in the habit of gambolling all 
along shore, one big one even coming into har- 
bor, where he was at once killed and cut up in 
the most hospitable manner. These whales were 
generally, however, only black-fish or right- 
whales, the more aristocratic sperm keeping his 
state in the seclusion of mid-ocean. 

The first official notice of the whaling interest 
is the mention in the town records of June 5, 
1672, of an agreement with "James Loper, 
who doth Ingage to carry on a design of whale 
citching in the Island of Nantuckket. That is, 
the said James Ingages to be a third in all re- 
speckes ; and some of the Town Ingage also to 
Carrey on the other two thirds with him in like 
manner." There is, however, no subsequent in- 
timation that James Loper came to Nantucket, or 
that any further official action was taken in the 
"whale citching" business until 1672, when Nan- 
tucket, finding her immemorial rival Cape Cod 
excelling her in this art, bestirred herself, and, 
sending thither, employed Ichabod Paddock to 



294 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

remove to the island and open a class in high- 
art whaling. 

The sperm-whale fishery, like Elia's roast pig, 
was discovered by accident : a dead one w^as 
thrown upon the beach, and the thrifty islanders 
securing and cutting it up were astounded at the 
treasure the gods had cast upon their shore. 
Soon after, Christopher Hussey, while cruising in 
the vicinity of the island in search of right-whale, 
was blown off shore, and with the luck of his 
great namesake discovered an Eldorado for his 
countrymen, — not a continent to be sure, but a 
floating island, an archipelago in fact, for he 
fell in with a school of sperm-whale, captured 
one and brought it home. 

And. now see, if you please, the progress of 
luxury and the insatiable greed of the human 
heart ! Nantucket, which had with joy and pride 
*'citched" her right-whales off-shore by means 
of row-boats, and only asked a full supply of the 
same, now scorned this meaner game, and pro- 
ceeded to build vessels fit for deep-sea fishing, 
and send them to look for sperm-whale. These 
first craft were of thirty or forty tons burden, 
and only supplied for a six-weeks' cruise, — their 
method being to capture a single whale, cut up 



COD, WHALES, AND CAMELS. 295 

his blubber, stow It in casks, and bring it ashore, 
when the owners took it in charge and tried it 
out, while the little vessel went after another 
whale. In 171 5 six sloops were thus employed, 
and in 1 730 the fleet had increased to twenty-five 
vessels of from thirty-eight to fifty tons burden, 
which together secured some 3,700 barrels of oil. 
In 1745 the first shipment of oil from Nantucket 
to England was made ; and in 1 783 the ship 
" Bedford," Captain Mooers, laden with 487 bar- 
rels of oil, unfurled the spic-and-span new Stars 
and Stripes upon the waters of the Thames, being 
the first American vessel hoisting United States 
colors in a British port. But our English cousins 
take a little more time to adapt themselves to 
new ideas than we volatile Americans do, and 
the ''Bedford" was not allowed entry until after 
consultation with the Lords of Council; for al-. 
though peace was declared, the red tape had got 
tangled round some Acts of Parliament against 
rebels, and had to be neatly coiled away before 
Captain Mooers could unload his oil, and eat a 
better mutton chop than even Nantucket moors 
could produce. 

In 1791 the " Beaver," Captain Paul Worth, 
was fitted out at a cost of $10,212, and was 



296 » . NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

the first whale-ship to circumnavigate Cape 
Horn. 

In iSiQthe ill-fated *' Essex," Captain Pollard, 
was stove and wrecked by a whale. The story 
has been previously given. Also, in 1 8 19, the 
" Hero," Captain James Russell, arrived home 
after two years' absence with 1,070 barrels of 
sperm and 6'^ barrels of right-whale oil. She 
had been captured off the Island of St. Mary by 
a pirate named Beneveder, who took her to 
Aranco, where Captain Russell and a boy were 
shot. Seeing in this the prophecy of their own 
fate, the mate, Obed Starbuck, with some of the 
crew, contrived to slip aboard, recaptured the 
vessel with her cargo, and sailed her out of 
Aranco under Beneveder's very nose, bringing 
her triumphantly home. 

In 1820 the ** Dauphin," Captain Zimri Coffin 
(Murphy, third mate), sailed September 4 and 
arrived home July, 1823, with 1,272 barrels of oil. 
Her adventures, minutely and truthfully logged 
by the third mate in a metrical history, which 
may be called the Odyssey of Nantucket, shall 
presently be given verbatim et literatim. 

In 1822 the ''Globe" sailed out of Nantucket. 
A month later the crew, headed by Sam Com- 



COD, WHALES, AND CAMELS. 297 

stock a boat-steerer, mutinied, and killed their 
officers; they then carried the ship to the 
Mulgrave Islands, and stripped her of sails, 
provisions, and stores, but in the ordinary 
course of things quarrelled among themselves, 
hung one of the company, and shot Comstock 
their leader. At this, Comstock's younger 
brother George, a boy of seventeen, entered 
into league with Gilbert Smith a boat-steerer, 
and five more of the crew, to escape from their 
companions and the less formidable savages 
with whom they were associated. They seized 
the ship before their design was suspected, 
sailed her off, and finally arrived safely at 
Valparaiso. Here they found a United States 
squadron under command of Commodore Hull, 
who dispatched Lieutenant Percival, in command 
of the schooner " Dolphin," to bring in the sur- 
viving mutineers, two in number, with the seven 
loyal men whom, in spite of their superior num- 
bers, they held in subjection. The lieutenant 
found the place; but of the nine only two in- 
nocent men, named Hussey and Lay, remained 
alive. The rest had been killed by the natives. 
Hussey and Lay finally arrived home, and for 
years were heroes and objects of interest to the 
Island. 



298 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

In 1827 the ''Sarah," Captain Arthur, sailed, 
and arrived home in three years, lacking one 
month, with 3,497 barrels of sperm oil, — the 
largest cargo of sperm ever brought in. 

In 1 83 1 sailed the ''Franklin," Captain George 
Prince. After a protracted cruise the captain, 
mates, and five men died of scurvy off Cape 
Horn. A boat-steerer came into command, and 
no doubt did his best; but not understanding 
navigation he stranded the " Franklin " on the 
coast of Brazil, where in Nantucket phrase she 
" laid her bones." 

In 1839 the '' Penn " sailed, arriving home, 
1842, with 1,340 barrels of sperm. She was the 
first ship taken across the bar by '' camels," and 
it was considered such an important event that 
the town bells were rung, guns were fired, and 
the population turned out en masse to wave and 
cheer, and to congratulate each other on what 
proved a very transitory blessing. 

Now most of us tJiink we know what a camel 
is, and probably some persons wiser than Mysie 
might not have found anything very ludicrous 
in her remarking, when told that the oil was 
brought to the wharves by camels, — 

" I suppose, then, it was put ashore at the 



COD, WHALES, AND CAMELS. 299 

Haul-over, and camels were the most suitable 
creatures to carry it over the sand into town. 
But how were they fed, and how kept alive 
through the winter? " 

It is pleasing to know that one has been able 
to add to the innocent pleasure of one's fellow- 
mortals ; and Mysie is quite sure that the mer- 
riment so painfully suppressed by the auditor 
of this query, burst out again as often as he 
repeated it during the next year, and may have 
wrought a permanent cure upon the dyspepsia 
probably affecting him, as he was an American. 

But soaring above these trivial personalities we 
discover that the camels were two huge boxes, 
one hundred and thirty-five feet long, nineteen 
feet deep, and twenty-nine feet at the bottom ; 
these were fitted with water-gates by which they 
could be filled and sunk, with steam-pumps by 
which they could be emptied and raised, with an 
engine, propeller, and rudder ; the two were 
yoked side to side by fifteen chains. passing down 
through the keel of one and up through the keel 
of the other, and long enough to allow a large 
vessel to lie between the two camels. Nojv Nan- 
tucket Bar is a delicate subject to meddle with, for 
Nantucket people do not like to have it said that 



300 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

the " Great Eastern " could not swim across it 
safely, or that the steamboats sometimes hitch 
a little in crossing it at low water. Still, in 
point of fact, Nantucket found that for some 
reason a heavily loaded whale-ship could not 
comfortably sail into harbor and up to her 
wharf, and several whalers were actually wrecked 
on the bar ; so that it came to be the fashion to 
break cargo outside and land the oil by boats. 
This was an expensive and tedious process ; 
and after a little thinking over the matter, Mr. 
Peter F. Ewer, father of the Rev. F. C. Ewer 
of New York, invented the camels. His head 
found hands to carry out its plans in Mr. J. G. 
Thurber, and in course of time the camels 
floated unwieldily at Straight Wharf, ready for 
action. 

The fashion of this action was deliberate and 
peculiar. A vessel heavy with oil arrived outside 
the bar and lay to ; her approach having been 
signalled from the tower (that is, the steeple of 
the Unitarian Church) and from various ''walks" 
interested in her arrival, fires were kindled under 
the engines of the camels, and they stearned out 
to her at the rate, in very smooth weather, of two 
miles an hour; in rough times with less celerity. 



COD, WHALES, AND CAMELS. 301 

Approaching the vessel, the camels separated, 
lengthened their connecting chains until they 
hung in a loop deeper than the keel of the 
vessel, and crept along one on either side until 
they had her well within their embrace; the 
water-gates were then opened, the camels were 
filled to their utmost capacity (exactly as the 
Bedouins fill their camels to their utmost ca- 
pacity before a journey), and, being full, sunk 
below the surface of the water. The chains were 
now " hove taut " by means of thirty windlasses, 
and the steam-pumps set at work throwing out 
the water at the rate of thirty barrels per min- 
ute; the lightened camels rose; the ship, hugged 
tight between them and supported by the fif- 
teen chains, rose also ; and when the operation 
was completed, ship, camels, and all did ■ not 
draw over five feet of water, — and propelled 
by the camel's engines and a steam-tug, floated 
majestically into harbor and up to the very 
wharf. 

But the camels proved themselves an expen- 
sive economy; and when in the course of five 
or six years they needed extensive repairs, the 
owners did not think it profitable to make them, 
especially as the whaling business began to de- 



302 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

cllne, and the camels went to decay and '' laid 
their bones " in the dock. A model of the cam- 
els, with a ship in their clasp, is to be seen in 
the Nantucket Museum. 

In 1854 the '' Manchester," Capt Alex. Coffin, 
sailed, and was soon after lost on the coast of 
Patagonia. She struck about fifty miles from 
land ; the captain's wife and most of the crew 
were drowned, but the captain, his son, and a few 
sailors reached shore, where all except young 
Coffin and one man were immediately massacred 
by the natives, who were thought to be cannibals. 
The son alone reached Nantucket to tell one of 
the last and most terrible tales of the whaling 
epoch. After this the record grows sad and ster- 
ile. Ships had to be fitted at great expense for 
very remote and protracted voyages ; owners grew 
despondent, and captains' wives discontented, 
until in 1859 the "Three Brothers" was absent 
five years and three months, only bringing home 
at the end of that time nine hundred and twenty- 
five barrels of sperm and two hundred and fifty 
of whale oil. Contrasted with such a voyage 
as that of the ''Sarah" in 1827, this was very 
disheartening, and owners began to think it 
best to dispose of their vessels, pocket their 



COD, WHALES, AND CAMELS, 303 

losses, and try to supply the deficit in some 
other way. 

Finally, we come upon the record in 1869: 
'' ' Oak.' Last Nantucket whaler." Requiescat 
in pace ! 

Several detached notices possess a great deal 
of suggestion if not much detail, as, — 

" ' Niphon,' sunk at sea very suddenly ; her plank- 
ing bored through by worms." 

"Captain Brown died in his boat while fast to a 
whale." 

" First whale ever taken in Pacific Ocean killed by a 
Nantucket man acting as mate of an English whaler." 

" Eleven whale-ships owned by R. and J. Mitchell 
previous to 1800." 

"No whaler sailed from Nantucket in 1863." 

" Captain WiUiam Keene, commanding the ' Christo- 
pher Mitchell,' made the Bay of Islands, where his offi- 
cers, boat-steerers, and nearly all his crew left the 
ship." 

One cannot but wonder here if Captain Keene 
had always been polite and affectionate to his " of- 
ficers, boat-steerers, and nearly all his crew," or 
if perhaps some little unpleasantness had arisen, 
making them willing to part from him for a brief 
season. But the " old man " was not without re- 
sources; for he found Captain William Swain 



304 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

willing to take the position of chief mate on 
board the " Christopher Mitchell," and among 
the loungers at the Bay of Islands they made up 
a sort of "scratch" crew and pursued the voyage. 
Whale were sighted, and Mr. Swain's boat struck 
the first one, when Swain himself was carried 
out of the boat and lost. Probably the captain 
could not sail the ship without an officer, and 
perhaps the men began to feel superstitious 
fears about craft and captain ; at any rate, 
they " put away for home " with three hundred 
barrels of oil. 

From these few crumbs and scraps one sees 
what a mine of wild adventure, exciting sport, 
and records of endurance, daring, and determi- 
nation the history of Nantucket whalers and 
whalemen contains. 

Of course, these stories lose much in being 
transplanted from their home, and nobody can 
tell them as the old men to whom they are per- 
sonal experiences. The judicious seeker after 
such treasures will find all and more than Mysie 
did if he goes to Nantucket ; and those who pre- 
fer " A Journey Around my Bedroom " may 
construct something satisfactory from the "spe- 
cimen bricks " here presented. 



A WHALING P^OYAGE. 305 

Let us close the whaling chapter with Mr. 
Murphy's most interesting rhythmical log of the 
'' Cruise of the Dauphin," published many years 
ago in pamphlet form, and now out of print : 



A JOURNAL OF A WHALING VOYAGE, 

ON BOARD SHIP " DAUPHIN," OF NANTUCKET. 

Composed by Charles Murphy, Third Mate on the 

Voyage. 



The ship " Dauphin " sailed Sept. 4, 1820, from Nantucket. The fol- 
lowing are the officers : Zimri Coffin, of Nantucket, Master ; Reuben 
Kelley, of Nantucket, First Mate ; George Brock, of Nantucket, Second 
Mate; Charles Murphy, of Nantucket, Third Mate; Joseph Hussey, of 
Nantucket, and Levi Snow, of Mattapoisett, Boat-steerers. 



September fourth, on Monday morn, 
The weather fine and clear, 
We weighed our anchor to the bow, 
And eastward we did steer. 

Blessed with a sweet and pleasant gale, 
From west-southwest it blew, 
Success attend the "Dauphin" 
And all her jovial crew ! 

Unto the girls we bid adieu 
Left on our native shore. 
And likewise unto all our friends, 
For two long years or more. 
20 



306 NANTUCKET SCRAPS, 

'T was one-and-twenty men we had 
This voyage to pursue, 
And a sperm-whahng we were bound 
On Chili and Peru. 

Then over the shoals our course we bent, 
Where billows loudly roar, 
The ship " States " left the bar with us, 
Our company she bore. 

September the one-and-twentieth day, 
The " States " in company, 
About two points off our lee bow 
A large sperm-whale did lie. 

We made all sail and stood away. 
It being pleasant weather; 
Our captains thought it best to heave 
Our chances all to^rether. 



't>^ 



" Lower down your boats and after her ! " 

Our captain then he cried. 

And very soon we had him dead, 

And towed him alongside. 



&" 



The body eighty barrels made ; 
The head it then did sink, — 
'Twas an unlucky circumstance, 
A rare one too, I think. 

October the fourth in the afternoon 
We Flores Isle did raise, 
From Nantucket our passage there 
Was only thirty days. 



A WHALING VOYAGE. 30/ 

Unto the southward then we steered 
For Boa Vista's Isle, 
In hopes before we saw that land 
To get some more sperm oil. 

October on the nineteenth day, 
Quite early in the morn, 
Then Boa Vista's barren isle 
We plainly did discern. 

We hauled our wind and braced up sharp 
And stood in for a while, 
Determined to go in that port 
And there send home our oil. 

The wind increased and hauled ahead 
At twelve o'clock that day, — 
Hard-up the helm and squared away 
And steered for the Isle of May. 

The forenoon on the twentieth day 
We in the harbor went, — 
There was a brig for Portland bound, 
And letters there we sent. 

Her captain could not take our oil, 
So for St. Jago bore ; 
At two o'clock arrived there, 
And sent a boat on shore. 

At sunset then the boat returned; 
All sail was quickly made, 
And to the southward then we steered 
With a strong northeast trade. 



308 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

The twenty-first, both ships hove to, 
Lying on the larboard tack ; 
Our oil we got from out the " States,'* 
And empty casks sent back. 

November the ninth, that day we passed 
The equinoctial line ; 
And then we took the southeast trades 
With weather clear and fine. 

Unto the southward still we steered. 
And naught did us molest ; 
We weathered Cape St. Augustine 
And then steered south-southwest. 

When we got up in twenty-nine, 
The " States " got out of sight, 
And then we took a furious gale, 
At twelve o'clock that night. 



"&' 



Clewed up and furled every sail 
Soon as it did begin, 
Got down the three topgallant yards, 
And boats we hoisted in. 

Three days it blew excessive hard, 
We all that time lay to ; 
The wind then to the northward hauled, 
And our course we did pursue. 

Then for the Brazil Bankswe steered, 
And crowded every sail, 
And kept a sharp look-out to get 
Another large sperm-whale. 



A WHALING VOYAGE. 3^9 

December eighth green water had, 
And then we tried for ground ; 
We hove aback, let run the lead, 
And fifty fathoms found. 

Hard-up the helm and squared the yards, 
And steered for Staten Land, — 
December, on the fifteenth day. 
We saw the rocky strand. 

At three o'clock in the afternoon 
Southwest by south it bore. 
By calculation, we were then 
Fifteen miles from the shore. 

December on the nineteenth day, 
Just off the weather beam, 
A ship a-running down for us 
Was plainly to be seen. 

She ran across our stern and hailed, — 
The " States " it proved to be ; 
And then we made more sail to keep 
Each other- company. 

Unto the windward then we steered, 
The weather quite severe. 
But weathered all in twenty days, 
And down the coast did steer. 

When we got down in forty-five, 
A gale blew on the shore ; 
The " States " got fairly out of sight, 
And we saw her no more. 



310 ATA NTUCKE T SCRAPS. 

In eighteen hundred twenty-one, 
In the month of January, 
The four-and-twentieth day, I think, 
We saw the Isle St. Mary.- 

Then we wore ship and stood off shore, 
A shoal of sperm-whales saw ; 
We lowered our boats, got fast to one, 
And very soon did draw. 

The whales to windward then they went. 
We after them did row : 
'T was blowing fresh, the chance was small, 
On board the boats did go. 

The one-and-twentieth of the month, 
Another shoal espied ; 
We lowered, and soon got fast to two. 
And took them alongside. 

Next morning then we cut them in, 
And then began to boil ; 
And both together only made 
A tun and a half of oil. 

The second month, quite early on 
The three-and-twentieth day, 
From our mast-head we did espy 
A boat to leeward lay. 

Hard-up the helm, and down we went 
To see who it might be, — 
The " Essex " boat we found it was, 
Been ninety days at sea.^ 

^ See account of wreck of the " Essex," on page 258-61. 



A WHALING VOYAGE. 3II 

No victuals were there in the boat 
Of any sort or kind, 
And two survivors, who did expect 
A watery grave to find. 

The rest belonging to the boat — 
Ah, shocking to relate ! — 
For want of food and nourishment 
Met an unhappy fate. 

We rounded to, and hove aback ; 
A boat was quickly lowered, — 
We took the two survivors out, 
And carried them on board. 

At sunrise, on the third of March, 
We then did plainly see 
A shoal of spermaceti whales 
Lie spouting off our lee. 

We hard-a-weather and ran down, 
Two boats we lowered away ; 
And two of them we took 'lonsfside 
At ten o'clock that day. 

Then just at night we saw some more, — 
Good luck, I do declare ! 
We got a forty-barrel bull. 
And had a noble fare. 

Same day, while cutting in our whale, 
About the hour of three, 
The ship " Two Brothers " then we spoke, 
And kept her company. 



312 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

We cruised together, off and on, 
Till March, the thirteenth day ; 
Our two survivors went on board, — 
Next morn they bore away. 

To Valparaiso they were bound. 
Provisions for to buy ; 

Cruise one more month, and then they were 
Bound home immediately. 

'T was on the nineteenth day of March, 
For port we bore away ; 
. And into Valparaiso went 
The three-and-twentieth day. 

Nine days we lay at anchor there ; 
Potatoes we did buy ; 
Of apples, pears, and Cape-Horn nuts 
We got a full supply. 

The water where we anchored, here 
In this extensive bay. 
Was five-and-twenty fathoms deep, — 
The bottom mud and clay. 

The harbor here is all exposed 
Unto a northern gale. 
And in the winter season 
They alwa3'^s do prevail. 

The southern breeze begins to blow 
In the latter part o' the day, 
And then ships lying in this port 
May safe at anchor lay. 



A WHALING VOYAGE. 313 

When you are bound into this port, 
Upon your starboard hand 
You '11 see a rock just off the point, 
But forty rods from land. 

The water round is very deep ; 
Yqur ship may wafted be 
As near the rock that 's off the point. 
Her length from danger free. 

The first of April we set sail, 
And left the Spanish shore ; 
With a good breeze we stood to sea 
To try our luck once more. 

April the one-and-twentieth day 
We saw the " States " once more ; 
And then together we did mate 
As we had done before. 

And on the four-and-twentieth day, 

Just at the fall of night, 

The " Lima," " Falcon," and the " Charles," 

Did plain appear in sight. 

By them we got some later news 
Than we had heard before, 
And all the drifts ^ about the girls 
From Newtown to North Shore. 

And early on the following day 
Our helm we hard-a-weather, 
To drop a little lower down, — 
The "States" and us together. 

^ Rumors. 



SH NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

We steerM north, and northwest, 
Until the first of May, 
Then hauled our wind and cruisM oif 
The mouth of Tonga Bay. 

And there we cruised a httle while, 
In hope to get some whales, 
Spoke the " Meteor " and the " Ark," 
And several other sails. 

The weather rough and whales scarce; 
We stopped a week or two ; 
And then broke mate-ship with the " States " 
And bore up for Peru. 

We cruised the coast of Chili o'er 
And cruised it round about, 
And cruised it up and cruised it down, 
And cruised the season out. 

And all the time that we were there 
Upon the rugged coast, 
Ten tuns of oil or thereabouts 
Was all that we could boast. 

'T was in the latter part of June, 
The five-and-twentieth day. 
Then three large whales ahead of us 
Spouting there did lay. 

We quickly lowered down our boats. 
And for them pulled away ; 
And one old sog we took 'longside 
At twelve o'clock that day. 



A WHALING VOYAGE. 315 

Our latitude observed that day- 
Was sixteen, twenty-four ; 
And we were plain in sight of land, 
But ten leagues from the shore. 

And on the ninth day of July, — 
'T was blowing mackerel gales, — 
Another shoal we then did raise 
Of spermaceti whales. 

And on the purlieus of the shoal 
We plainly did espy 
A noble seventy-barrel whale, — 
She spouting there did lie. 

We lowered the waist and starboard boats, 
And having extra luck 
We rowed just right, when she came up, 
And soon went on and struck. 

At three o'clock we had her dead ; 
To tow we did begin ; 
At five we had her safe 'longside. 
Next day we cut her in. 

We cruised three months in sixteen south, 
'T was rugged all the while, 
And there we got but fifteen tuns. 
Of spermaceti oil. 

And on the eighth of August, we 

Up helm and bore away. 

Ran down in twelve, and there we spoke 

The " Ruby," Captain Ray. 



3 1 6 NANTUCKE T SCRAPS. 

When we spoke him 't was blowing 
Strong trades and heavy gales, 
And he told us that he had seen 
Unnumbered shoals of whales. 

But rugged as the weather was, 
'T was best to take a view ; 
Again we hauled upon the wind, 
To try and see some, too. 

Two weeks we cruised, and spoke some ships, 
The " Lima," " Ark," and others ; 
We found the whales there wild and scarce, 
Then mated with the '• Brothers." 

Then we hard-up, and squared the yards, 
For Payta we were bound ; 
Stood off northwest, and then northeast, 
To have a look around. 

When we got down as far as five, 
Again we hauled our wind. 
We cruised there for several days, 
But nothing could we find. 

Then into Payta we did go, 
And if rightly I remember, 
We cast our anchor off the town 
The twelfth day of September. 

Ten days at anchor in this port 
Our good ship then did lie. 
As we scrpped and blacked the bends, 
And some recruits ^ did buy. 

^ Fresh provisions. 



A WHALING VOYAGE. 31/ 

But vegetation ^ was so scarce, 
And everything so high, 
We were obliged to go to sea 
Without a full supply. 

Here is no dreary reef of rocks, 
And here no shoal of sand 
That will obstruct the pilot's course, 
Along the sea-beat strand. 

The sea-breeze here begins to blow 
Late in the afternoon, 
For here the breezes always are 
Influenced by the moon. 

At full and change the breeze is strong 
For two or three hours or so ; 
In other phases of the moon 
Then lightly they do blow. 

The hills that do surround this place 
Are all quite barren ground ; 
There 's not a shrub, or plant, or tree 
For several miles around. 

The barren hills are ever dry, 
For here no welcome rain 
Descends from the ethereal clouds, 
To greet the parched plain. 

The houses here are built of logs. 

The boards are split bamboo, 

The roofs are thatched all o'er with straw, 

And reeds and rushes too. 

* Vegetables. 



3l8 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

The logs are driven in the ground, 
Which serves for every stud, 
The split bamboo to them is tied, 
And plastered round with mud. 

The ground it serves them for a floor, 
Which is composed of clay ; 
A platform covered with a mat 
Serves for a place to lay. 

The furniture does there consist 
Of a table and a chair ; 
The better sort a sofa have, — 
But that is very rare. 

For knives and forks, they have to use 
Fingers at any rate. 
And four or five all sitting round 
Will eat out of one plate. 

Just in the middle of the room 
Is hung up by a string 
A cot, for ease and pleasure, 
Where one may sit and swing. 

The one-and-twentieth of the month, 

'T was fine and pleasant weather ; 

The '' Dauphin " and tlie " Brothers " weighed, 

And stood to sea together. 

When we had been at sea six days, 
Cruising off and on, 
We saw a noble shoal of whales 
Quite early in the morn. 



A WHALING VOYAGE. 3 19 

Our waist and larboard boats 
Were from their stations lowered; 
We chased the shoal till we were tired, 
And then returned on board. 

But ere the sun was fairly down, 
Some more whales hove in sight ; 
We lowered, and soon got fast to one. 
And had him dead by night. 

Three days from that we saw some more, 
To the windward of us lay ; 
We lowered our boats, got fast to two, 
At six o'clock that day. 

And when we had them all stowed down, 
And into our ground tier. 
We made all sail upon the ship, — 
For Tumber we did steer. 

October on the seventh day, 
'T was Sunday, you must know. 
Abreast of Tumber River we 
Our anchor did let go. 

We furled our sails and moored our ship, 

And lay a day or two, 

Before we could some water get, 

Or anything could do. 

At length the bar became more smooth. 
For water we did go ; 
Three hundred barrels we got off. 
And stowed it all below. 



320 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

The river where we water got 

Is beautiful and fine ; 

Five leagues in length this river runs, 

Crooked and serpentine. 

Upon the margin of this stream, 
How lovely it did seem ! 
The sturdy trees their branches bend, 
And dip the silver stream. 

The warbling birds from spray to spray 
Do swell their tuneful throats, 
And make the lofty woods resound 
With their melodious notes. 

On either side the waving flags 

In wild profusion grow ; 

Through these some gently murmuring rills 

Incessantly do flow. 

And here upon the fertile banks. 
With ease and plenty crowned, 
The farmer with his offspring lives, 
And tills the peaceful ground. 

His rustic cot composed of reeds, 
Though neither fine nor gay, 
Shelters him from the nightly dews, 
And scorching sun by day. 

For here no drenching rains descend, 
Nor furious gales appear, 
But gentle breezes fan the plain 
The whole revolving year. 



A WHALING VOYAGE. 321 

Here cocoanutand orange trees 
Do rear their lofty head, 
And through the pure dehghtful air 
Their -balmy incense spread. 

Here plantain and banana trees 
Upon the banks are seen ; 
In stately rows they all do stand, 
With grassy walks between. 

And here beneath their spreading Hmbs, 
Upon the ground reclined, 
The patient ox, when freed from toil, 
A grateful respite finds. 

Some vegetation here we got, 

And also got some fruit, 

And with oysters, flags, and wood and poles 

Made up a good recruit. 

And having got all things on board, 
We weighed and stood to sea, 
With a fine breeze from north-northeast, 
The " Brothers " in company. 

And now 't was time to leave the coast ; 
The season had come round 
When we must to the westward steer, 
And take the Off-Shore s:round. 



fc>' 



Accordingly we steered west. 
Left the adjacent shore, — 
Cape Blanco, distant thirty leagues, 
And east-southeast it bore. 



322 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

When we got off in the longitude 
Of one hundred nine and eight, 
Our captains then they thought it best 
No longer for to mate. 

So we our partnership dissolved, 
Each different courses took, 
In hopes by that to bring about 
Some little better luck. 

But dire misfortune's powerful hand 
Had marked us for her own, 
And not one mite of odds it made 
Whether mated or alone. 

In eighteen hundred twenty-two, 
'T was on the New Year's day, 
A large sperm-whale we did espy, 
To the leeward of us lay. 

Then all three boats were quickly lowered, 

And for him rowed away ; 

We took this noble prize 'longside 

At five o'clock that day. 

That served to cheer our spirits up, 
In hopes that through the year 
Good luck would still continue on, 
And better days appear. 

We cruised upon the Off-Shore ground 
About four months I ween ; 
Fine weather all the time we had, 
As any we had seen. 



A WHALING VOYAGE. 323 

But the season being far advanced, 
And few whales to be found, 
Our captain thought it best to go 
Upon the northern ground. 

'T was then we mated with the " Hope," — 
From Boston she did hail ; 
We steered off west and north-northwest, 
In hopes to find some whales. 

A week from that or thereabouts. 
Our captains did agree, 
The bark " Eliza " of New York 
To take in company. 

We to the northward bent our way, 
With northeast trades and clear, 
And for the Sandwich Islands then 
All three of us did steer. 

'T was on the thirteenth day of March, 
Quite early in the morn, 
The Island of Mani ahead 
We plainly did discern. 

The wind it proving very light 
In the latter part of the day. 
At sunset we all hove aback. 
And there all night did lay. 

Our little whaling squadron then 
A cloud of sails did spread. 
And west-northwest we all did steer, 
To clear the northern head. 



3^4 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

At daylight on the fifteenth day, 

We all three hard-a-weather, 

And round the western point we steered, 

All three of us together. 

At six o'clock, or thereabouts, 
After a tedious tow, 
The water sixteen fathoms deep. 
Our anchor we let go. 

And now our decks with girls were filled. 
Of every sort and kind ; 
And every man bought shells and beads, 
The best that he could find. 

Our sails were furled, our good ship moored, 
And everything put to rights ; 
Two weeks we here at anchor lay, 
And cruised on shore of nights. 

The houses here are built of poles, 
Which are driven into the ground ; 
Some sticks across the poles are tied, 
And thatched with straw all round. 

The houses are built very low; 
And then so low the doors. 
That when you enter in at them 
You must go on all fours. 

One room is all they ever have ; 
The ground with mats is spread, 
Which serves them for a place to sit, 
And also for a bed. 



A WHALhVG VOYAGE. 32$ 

The soil is very fertile here, 
And where the land is low 
Square places are cut in the ground, 
Where beds of taro grow. 

The water from the mountain is 
Conveyed by various roads ; 
And in these taro beds it runs, 
Which keeps them overflowed. 

And here are pleasant walks laid out 
Between the beds of taro, 
Where you must walk in Indian file, 
Because they are so narrow. 

Here sweet potatoes, corn and yams, 
In plenteous crops are found; 
Here the bread-fruit trees do grace 
The cultivated ground. 

Here cabbage and tobacco plants 
Are natured to the soil, 
And melons of two different kinds 
Reward the farmer's toil. 

Here plantains and bananas thrive, 
And cocoanuts abound. 
And squashes, gourds, and sugar-cane 
Adorn the fruitful ground. 

April the fifth, in the afternoon, 
A leading breeze it blew ; 
Then we got under way and bid 
The Mani girls adieu. 



326 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

Then for Oahu we shaped our course, 
And west-by-south did steer ; 
The Mani mountains capped with clouds 
Began to disappear. 

Next morn, when Phoebus o'er the deep 
Had shed his rays of h'ght. 
The Island of Oahu ahead 
Did plain appear in sight. 

At nine o'clock or thereabouts 
We were abreast the strand, 
But the wind it was a-blowing strong, 
And too rugged then to land. 

Accordingly we hauled our wind, 
Kept lying off and on ; 
So we manoeuvred all the night. 
Until the following morn. 

Then we ran in and hove aback, 
The starboard boat did lower ; 
The captain and six other men 
Repaired unto the shore. 

'Twas April, on the thirteenth day. 
We left the friendly shore ; 
The " Hope " still kept our company. 
And westward we did steer. 

And for the Japan coast we steered, 

Expecting there to find 
The bosom of the briny deep 
With spermaceti lined. 



A WHALING VOYAGE. 32/ 

Then we ran down the northeast trades 
For two or three weeks or more, 
Until our longitude was east, 
One hundred seventy-four. 

Then we hauled up and steered northwest, 
And shortly did arrive 
North of the equinoctial line. 
In thirty-four or five. 

Now got upon the Japan coast, — 
We every night hove to, 
Our longitude then being east. 
One hundred sixty-two. 

And all the month of May throughout 
Bad weather there we found, 
And fogs, and calms, and heavy rains 
Environed us all round. 

'T was on the fifteenth day of June, 
A heavy gale it blew ; 
We parted from the " Hope," 
As we were lying to. 

The weather now became more smooth 
Than it had been before, 
And now the ocean all around 
A cheering aspect bore. 

July and August, then we had 
Fine weather all the while, 
And those two months we did procure 
Full seventy tuns of oil. 



328 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

The season being far advanced, 
'T was drawing near the time 
To leave the northern latitude 
And try a southern clime. 

For the Sandwich Islands then we steered, 
Some few recruits to buy, 
Likewise some water to obtain, 
And get a fresh supply. 

October the ninth at eight P. M. 
The isle of Hawaii, 
Bearing south-southeast of us, 
We plainly then did see. 

And when the sun dispelled the mist 
That gathered in the night, 
Then Morotai and Mani 
Did plain appear in sight. 

Then we hard-up and steered west 
Till twelve the following night, — 
Left Morotai on the left, 
The ocean on the rio:ht. 



'fc>' 



Then we luffed to and lay aback 
Until dayhght appeared. 
And then again we bore away, 
And west-by-south we steered. 

Same day, while running before the wind, 
About the hour of two, 
We plain discovered, right ahead, 
The island of Oahu. 



A WHALING VOYAGE. 329 

Then we ran down abreast the bluff, 
On the weather part of the bay, 
And then kept lying off and on 
Till sunrise the next day. 

Then we ran in with a light breeze, 
Got everything to rights, 
Let go our anchor in the roads. 
And lay two days and nights. 

Then a pilot we received on board, 
It being now our turn ; 
And in the basin we did tow, 
And moored her head and stern. 

The graceful damsels from the shore, 
As soon as we were moored, 
Came paddling off in their canoes, 
While others swam on board. 

For here 't is the same as at Mani, — 
The women are all for trade ; 
Calicoes, rings, and scrimshaun work^ 
Are sought by every maid. 

Oahu is in west longitude 
One hundred fifty-nine, 
And latitude of twenty-two, 
To the northward of the line. 

A fine, commodious harbor here 
Presents itself to view, 
Which is upon the southwest part, 
And is equalled by but few. 

* Toys carved from bone or wood by the sailors. 



330 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

Our ship we well recruited here 
With vegetation kind ; 
And at this season of the year 
A plenty you will find. 

December eleventh at daylight, we 
Our goodly ship unmoored, 
At eight A. M. or thereabouts 
The pilot came on board. 

Then with a fine and pleasant breeze 
We soon got under way, 
Stood out to sea beyond the reef, 
And then we bore away. 

North west-by-west we then did steer. 
To clear the western head ; 
Then to the northward hauled our wind, 
To pass the northeast trades. 

And when we reached the latitude 

Of thirty-one or two, 

Unto the eastward then again 



i^'^ 



Our course we did pursue. 

And when our longitude was west 
One hundred twenty-four. 
Unto the southward then we steered, 
To cruise a while off shore. 

December the eight-and-twentieth day. 
By our latitude we found 
We had crossed the equinoctial line. 
And gained the Off-Shore ground. 



A WHALING VOYAGE. 12,1 

In eighteen hundred twenty-three, 
First month, the thirteenth day, 
Provisions growing somewhat short, 
No longer could we stay. 

Unto the southward then we steered, 
And left the Off-Shore ground, 
And hugged our wind all through the trades, 
For Valparaiso bound. 

When we got up in the latitude 
Of twenty- three or four, 
The western winds we then did take, 
And steered away in shore. 

The second month, the thirteenth day, 
When daylight cheered the sky, 
Then Masafuera, right ahead, 
We plainly did espy. 

Same day about the hour of ten, 
If I have not forgot, 
We saw a noble large sperm-whale, 
Going thirty or forty knot. 

We lowered our boats, took chase to him. 
But finding it in vain, 
We then gave o'er the fruitless toil 
And went on board ajrain. 



'^to'- 



For Masafuera then we steered, 
It being now our wish 
To get a new recruit of wood, 
And catch a mess of fish. 



332 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

Next day, we having gained the land 
Sufficient nigh to lower, 
Laid the maintopsail to the mast, 
And sent two boats on shore. 

The land is high and craggy too, 
The shores are iron bound ; 
No harbor round the isle is seen, 
No anchorage here is found. 

The mountains are well stocked with goats. 

Which easily are shot, 

And wood and water on the beach 

In plenty may be got. 

The shores all round are lined with fish 

Of a superior sort, 

And at all times and seasons 

In plenty may be caught. 

The thirteenth of the month we left, 
And hauled our wind in shore, 
And stood for Valparaiso's port 
As we had done before. 

The three-and-twentieth of the month 
The land appeared in sight, 
We ran off Valparaiso's head, 
Lay off and on all night. 

At twelve o'clock the following day 
We in the port did go : 
The water thirty fathoms deep. 
Our anchor we let go. 



A WHALING VOYAGE. 333 

Three weeks we lay at anchor here, 
And got a good recruit 
Of apples, pears, and peaches 
And other kinds of fruit. 

Potatoes, cabbage, onions, here, 
We in this port did buy, 
And of provisions here we got 
A very good supply. 

And when we got our stores on board 
And stowed them all below, 
We quickly then got under way 
And out to sea did go. 

In eighteen hundred twenty-three, 
March the twentieth day, 
We hauled our larboard tacks aboard. 
For home we put away. 

Our mainmast now being somewhat weak, 
We thought it best to fix it, 
Lest on our passage round the cape 
Some accident should dish it. 

Then all our boats we hoisted in, 
Our strongest sails did bend, 
And all topgallant yards and masts 
We down on deck did send. 

And having fitted well our ship 
To pass Cape Horn again, 
Each man then, fore and aft the ship, 
Scrimshauning did begin. 



334 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

Then knitting-sheaths and jagging-knives 

Were cut in every form, 

And other trinkets for the girls, 

As presents from Cape Horn. 

April the eighth, we having fun 
Our latitude quite out. 
Unto the eastward then we steered, 
And took a pleasant route. 

Fine weather and fine western gales 
To us did now appear, 
And as our longitude decreased, 
More northward did we steer. 

April the two-and-twentieth day. 
The weather clear and fine, 
Our latitude observed at noon 
Was fifty, fifty-nine. 

Our longitude then being west. 

Just forty-nine and four, 

'Twas then due north we steered our course 

For freedom's happy shore. 

When we got down in thirty-two, 
'T was on the fifth of May, 
Four points upon our weather bow, 
A large sperm-whale did lay. 

Our waist and starboard quarter-boats 
Were manned and lowered away. 
And we obtained the noble prize 
At four o'clock that day. 



A WHALING VOYAGE. 335 

Then we lay by the whale all night, 
Till daylight broke again, 
Then called all hands, and soon began 
To cut the blubber in. 

And having cut her blubber in, 
We then made sail again, 
And still pursued our wanton course 
Across the western main. 

'T was on the twenty-fourth of May, 
As we were steering free. 
We plainly saw Cape Augustine 
Four points upon our lee. 

Then north-by-east we shaped our course, 

Till we got fairly clear ; 

And then again we kept away, 

And north-northwest did steer. 

The twenty-eighth we crossed the line. 
And northward still we steered, 
And when our latitude was four. 
We took the northeast trades. 

A favoring breeze attended us, 
With weather clear and fine. 
And on the ninth of June we reached 
The northern tropic line. 

The three-and-twentieth day of June * 
We hove aback to sound. 
About the hour of ten at night, 
And ninety fathoms found. 



SS^ NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

Then we ran in with a light breeze, 
Stood well in off Montaug, 
And there we lay four days and nights 
Blockaded in the fog. 

While we were lying off and on, 
And drifting round about, 
We spoke a little schooner boat, 
And took a pilot out. 

The eight-and-twentieth day of June 
The foggy vapors cleared. 
We bore away before the wind, 
And for Nantucket steered. 

The flaming orb of day had passed 
Two thirds the vaulted sky. 
When, lo ! upon our starboard bow 
Nantucket then did lie. 

Same day we anchored at the bar, — 
Our anxious voyage now o'er, 
To see our wives, sweethearts, and friends 
We hastened to the shore. 

And now in harbor we 've arrived. 
All hands are well and stout ; 
Unbend the sails and take them up, 
And next the oil break out. 

Our oil is sold, and cash is paid. 
We '11 share it with our friends ; 
And when it 's gone, to sea for more, — 
And so my journey ends. 



SCRAP V. 



VOYAGING UNDER PERILOUS CIRCUMSTANCES. 




WO days passed most delightfully in this 
fashion, and the more so that the dear 
lady previously mentioned as having 
traditions of the beloved mother's girlhood to 
relate was spending a few days in her own cottage 
at Sconset, and was always hospitable and charm- 
ing. The third evening was still and dark, and 
very cold, — a gloomy and reticent sort of twi- 
light, in whose latest shadows Mysie came in 
from the beach, thinking contentedly of tea and 
afterward of a good Sconset talk with her host, 
who always seemed to have a new phase of 
interest to present, and a yet more fascinating 
story to relate. But hardly had she spread 
hands and heart before the genial fire, when 
Mamie appeared with a letter and news that the 
bearer was waiting in the kitchen. " Unhappy be 
the man who invented letters ! " ruefully mut- 

22 



33S NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

tered Mysie, foreboding disturbance to her com- 
fortable schemes; and to be sure the letter, 
forwarded with great earnestness, demanded not 
only a reply by the early boat of next morning, 
but a consultation with a lawyer before replying. 

No lawyer was to be had at Sconset, and the 
problem solved itself with beautiful mathemat- 
ical certainty into the necessity of leaving pleas- 
ant fire and pleasant company and the projects 
for the morrow, and going straightway back to 
town, seeing the lawyer, posting her reply to 
the letter, and parting with Sconset. 

Mamie was despatched to find her father, one 
of those cool, clear-headed men upon whose 
decisions women not professing to be strong- 
minded are apt to rest with great confidence ; 
and after hearing the case he assented to the 
necessity, but shook his head at the means. 

'* They 've sent a little boy with the carriage," 
said he ; '* and though he 's a smart enough little 
chap as far as I see, it don't seem quite ship- 
shape to send you off alone with him. Can't 
you wait till morning? " 

" Not possibly." 

" Well, then, you must go to-night, and I will 
go and talk with Zack a little more." 



PERILOUS VOYAGING. 339 

Zack was confident, as perhaps smart boys 
are a little too apt to be ; the horse seemed 
steady, and Mysie was determined. So after 
examining every buckle of the harness, every 
portion of the carriage, and cautioning Zack 
to keep a sharp lookout ahead, mine host led 
the horse out of the gate, made a pretty farewell 
speech to. his guest, and, as it were, launched 
the ship destined after many perils to be wrecked 
on Sconset moors. 

The roads, like everything else at Sconset, are 
liberal and without any very arbitrary limits, 
consisting mostly of deep ruts worn through 
the turf into the sand and naturally deepening 
with every day's use. When the ruts become too 
deep, somebody drives out on one side or the 
other of them and makes a new track, in course 
of time superseded by another, and so on. The 
ultimate effect of this system is a vegetable 
and silicious gridiron, from one to two rods in 
width, along which one travels very comfort- 
ably so long as he adapts the wheels of his 
vehicle to its parallels ; but very uncomfortably, 
if he tries to be independent. 

Now either Zack or the horse did try to be 
independent, and in spite of all Mysie's remon- 



340 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

strances constantly traversed the gridiron at full 
speed, in such fashion as threatened dislocation 
both of the springs of the carriage and of the 
articulations of the traveller's frame. Once or 
twice the rebound was so severe as to throw 
her upon her knees, or across the back of the 
forward seat; and on these occasions a short 
and lively conversation ensued between herself 
and Zack, who always said it was the horse's 
fault, and as the horse did not speak in his own 
defence he probably felt guilty. At last, after 
two or three successive crashes like those tem- 
pestuous chords by w^hich one knows when a 
classic pianist is going to leave off, there came 
the final bewildering crash, the ultimate bang of 
the pianist, the end of all things for Mysie as 
she for a moment thought, amid the tumult of 
crashing wood, prancing hoofs, shouting driver, 
and her own lowly condition in the bottom of 
the carriage. 

*' You stop ! " shouted Zack, but in so quaver- 
ing a voice, that, had the horse been disposed 
to be disagreeable, he would at once have seen 
that he was master ; but horses are as a general 
rule very magnanimous, and this one, after a 
few experimental plunges, stood still and whin- 



PERILOUS VOYAGING. 34 1 

nied his inquiries as to what had happened. 
Mysie also, feehng a certain curiosity on this 
point, mildly advised Zack, who was weeping, to 
get out and investigate. He did so, and pres- 
ently announced in a quavering voice that the 
old " whippletry 's broke, durn it all; and 'taint 
no fault o' mine, whatever dad says." Mysie 
meekly wondered if it was any fault of hers, or 
if perhaps the magnanimous horse could be 
persuaded to say it was his fault ; but pending 
his answer to the query, she advi*sed Zack to 
take him out from the shafts, get on his back, 
and ride back to Mr. Coffin's for help. With a 
good deal of trouble and some muttered remarks 
not well to repeat, Zack obeyed, and with the 
horse's patient help got him free from the broken 
carriage and led him to the sid^ of it, saying, — 

*'You hold him, and I'll go back to Sconset 
afoot." 

"How far is it?" 

"Three mile and a half. Here's just half- 
way." 

" But why don't you ride? " 

" I daresn't. He 's awful ugly, that horse is." 

"He don't appear so; but I can't hold him 
while you walk three miles and a half and back. 



342 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

You must tie him to something. Is n't this a 
fence that we have run into?" 

" Yes, there 's a gully acrost here ; and this is a 
kind o' causeway, and there 's a fence each side." 

** Well, tie him to the fence and blanket him, 
and do be quick ; it 's bitterly cold." 

'* /'U be w^arm enough 'fore I make Scon- 
set," muttered Zack, discontentedly ; and having 
thrown out one of the robes for the horse's 
benefit, Mysie proceeded to encamp as comfort- 
ably as she might upon the carriage floor, with 
the other two robes and a hot brick with which 
Mrs. Coffin had kindly provided her. 

The horse was tied, Zack departed, and the 
longest two hours that ever lay between eight and 
ten o'clock of a wintry night began to mark off 
their sixty seconds to each minute, — and a sec- 
ond is quite a tangible space of time under 
some circumstances. The horse, after some mo- 
ments of intensely quiet meditation, evidently 
made up his mind that it was not his fault, and 
that his fine sense of justice was outraged by the 
unmerited discomfort of his position. As this 
idea grew upon his mind, he tossed his head 
so vehemently that the blanket slipped off his 
shoulders, and allowed the piercing moor-wind 



PERILOUS VOYAGING. 343 

to strike a chill to his honest heart ; he neighed 
indignantly and switched his tail, but was 
unable to pick up and readjust the blanket. 
Mysie thought of getting out and doing it for 
him, but just then he began rearing and plung- 
ing about in so eccentric a fashion that she con- 
cluded he would keep warm without her help. 
It was so dark that nothing was distinctly visible 
except the stars ; and a very curious effect was 
produced by the horse's suddenly standing on 
his hind legs, and seeming to sweep a w^hole 
segment of the stars out of the arc described by 
his huge body. He did this a good many times, 
until Mysie sarcastically inquired if he did n't 
know something funnier than that. Evidently 
he did ; for after one or more parabolas he 
suddenly appeared entire against the stars, like 
a new constellation trying to set himself in 
heaven, and for a moment presented a very 
gorgeous appearance, his head, mane, tail, and 
hinder hoofs all above the horizon at once. 
Then he plunged over the fence into the gully; 
and as he went, Mysie's mind rapidly pictured 
him hanging to the rail and dying miserably, or 
lying in the gully with broken legs and dislocated 
shoulders until somebody came to shoot him. 



344 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

Her first serious emotion arose at this picture, 
for she is a good deal of Dean Swift's mind 
about Houyhnhnms and Yahoos ; but evidently 
there was nothing to be done in the darkness and 
femininity of the situation, so she only leaned out 
and listened with both ears, until the plunging 
about, click of iron shoes against wood and 
stone, and various ponderous sounds of crushing 
twigs and herbage showed that the beast was at 
least alive. " But of course he 's ruined, and 
Zack or I am responsible for his value," was the 
next thought. But just then, with a last mighty 
plunge, our india-rubber steed arose and began 
walking up the gully, dragging after him a por- 
tion of the top rail of the fence, to which he 
had been so securely tied that it had preferred 
to break and follow his descent rather than to 
release him. At the top of the gully he once 
again came against the stars, and as he walked 
composedly away, rail and all, like Samson with 
the weaver's beam, Mysie was relieved to see 
that he did not even limp. The last click of 
his hoofs died away as he wandered off upon 
the moors, and a silence succeeded so intense 
as to make a real experience in one's life. Not 
a sound from the sea, for the surf w^as not pour- 



PERILOUS VOYAGING. 345 

ing in to-night in its line of battle charge, 
but sliding up the sands in a sullen, brooding 
fashion, as if meditating a storm and some ship- 
wrecks ; not one of the hundred murmurous 
insect-voices of summer-time, not one hoot of 
an owl or the cry of a loon or the cropping of 
sheep, not one of the notes of life, sweet multi- 
form life, which made the summer night-hour 
upon the moors so memorable. Here in the 
darkness, the deadly chill and the silence, life 
no longer seemed sweet and gracious, but terri- 
ble in its solemnity. The stars burned like 
points of flame, and the great red eye of the 
light-house on its distant headland seemed 
watching with benignant care over this atom 
of humanity which with itself represented the 
presence of man amid the vastness of Nature, 
— a light-house and a woman opposed to that 
awful expanse of fiery suns arching overhead, 
that great black expanse of moorland around, 
the ocean girdling the little island on every side 
and cutting it off from the common earth ! 

One does not come upon many such hours in 
life. But the night grew later and the cold more 
keen, and the bitter wind rousing from its nap 
began searching every crevice of the impertinent 



34^ NANTUCKET SCRAPS 

vehicle standing in its way, and pinching and 
stinging the poor shivering atom cowering in 
its depths. Physical discomfort was beginning 
tyrannously to assert itself, when a ''Hullo!" 
from out the darkness, and the swinging of a 
distant lantern suggested a new train of thought. 
If somebody cries " hullo " to you, what can you 
do but cry '* hullo" back again? It is not ele- 
gant, it is not classical, it is not even aesthetic, 
but it is in a way inevitable ; so Mysie cried 
*' hullo " with fervor, and as the lantern rapidly 
approached added, — 

''Is that Mr. Coffin?" so piteously, that a 
jovial laugh heralded the response, — 

*' It 's Robert Coffin sure enough, and all the 
trouble 's over for this time. Are you frozen or 
frightened, or both? And where 's the horse? " 

The story was soon told, and a new dilemma 
arose ; for supposing the broken whippletree the 
principal trouble, Robert had only thought of 
mending it, and had slipped his horse into the 
farm-wagon standing in the yard, as the easiest 
to come at of his vehicles. 

The horse being gone, it was useless to mend 
the whippletree, since the cart-horse with his 
chain-harness could not be adapted to carriage- 



PERILOUS VOYAGING. 347 

shafts; and as the farm-wagon had neither 
springs nor seat, and was used for very practical 
purposes, our friend's natural chivalry urged the 
impossibility of a lady's using it. His kindly 
face assumed a shade of anxiety, not to say 
distress, as he inquired, — 

** Now what will you do? Stay here while I 
drive home and put the horse into the carry-all, 
— Zack is here in the cart and could stay with 
you, — or could you make up your mind just 
for once to get into a farm-wagon and let me 
take you back to the house to get warmed up 
and have a cup of coffee or so before we start 
out again? I '11 go Into town with you any way, 
so you can fix it just as you like. You 've only 
to say which." 

" Then if you please," said Mysie, *' I will 
get into the farm-wagon and drive straight into 
town ; we are half way, and it is growing late, 
and I had rather go through." 

And so, after much opposition on the part of 
this preiix chevalier, the affair was arranged. A 
nest of carriage-robes and blankets was arranged 
in one corner of the cart, wherein Mysie and 
her faithful brick were carefully bestowed ; Rob- 
ert sturdily stood beside her and drove, balanc- 



348 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

ing himself like a sailor as the springless cart 
rattled over the frozen road, while Zack, also 
standing and holding by one of the cart-stakes, 
seemed sadly and silently revolving the question, 
''What will dad say?" 

Eleven strokes of the town-clock as the cart 
struck the cobbles and began to shake up its 
occupants in serious earnest, and a few moments 
later the lawyer just seeking his virtuous slum- 
bers was summoned to the exercise of his privi- 
leges ; and half an hour later Mysie bade a grate- 
ful good-night to her kind and chivalrous escort, 
and astonished her friends by appearing at their 
door. But not until almost twenty-four anxious 
hours had passed was the horse found quite un- 
harmed in the remotest corner of the island. 

A few more quiet days were spent in paying 
parting visits to certain persons and places of 
whom and of which Mysie had grown fond. 
One of these was the Athenaeum, — pronounced 
by many of the burghers A^/^^naeum, — one of 
the principal buildings in Nantucket, and one of 
the most interesting. Here is the hall where 
" Patience" is played, and where the peripatetic 
lecturer delivers one of his two discourses for 
the current season ; here also the more stately 



PERILOUS VOYAGING. 349 

dancing parties are held, and any other solemn 
assembly for which people are ready to pay a 
serious entrance fee. Below the hall is the 
Museum, where reside the jaw of a sperm-whale 
and several other nautical curiosities more or 
less interesting as one may fancy, and a custod- 
ian more interesting than the curiosities. 

But the nucleus of the Athenaeum is the Li- 
brary, — a subscription affair, but open to visi- 
tors on payment of a small sum for the season. 
The hall is a very pleasant reading-room, where 
one may see the latest magazines and take what 
book one likes from the shelves, or consult dic- 
tionaries and encyclopaedias without formality. 
Here, too, hangs an admirable picture of Abram 
Quary, the last Indian of Nantucket. He is rep- 
resented seated in his own cabin, with a basket 
of berries just picked for sale, upon a table, and 
surrounded with the details of his homely house- 
keeping. Through the open window a.t his back 
one sees the harbor of Nantucket and the long 
reach of Coatue. The old man's face is ad- 
mirable in its aboriginal dignity and pathos, 
and the whole composition presents one chap- 
ter of Nantucket history with marvellous sug- 
gestiveness. 



3 so NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

The librarian is a lady whose courteous and 
charming manner and ready interest in her visit- 
ors adds an attraction to this pleasant retreat, too 
often lacking in more pretentious institutions. 

And now the last days of the Nantucket visit 
were slipping off the thread, and the very last 
excursion was planned ; it was a long drive, 
circling the eastern end of the island, taking 
in Ouaise, Podpis, Quidnit, Sachacha Pond, and 
Sankaty Light-house, and so through Sconset 
home. It really was a long drive and a very 
cold one, for November was just lapsing into 
December, and the winter settling down. It 
was November 23, — St. Clement's day in the 
old English calendar, — and as Mysie came out 
to the carriage, a walking mass of wraps and 
preventive measures, she quoted Dr. Neele's 
lines : — 

" It was about November-tide, 

A long, long time ago, 
When good St. Clement testified 

The faith that now we know. 
Right boldly then he said his say 

Before a furious king : 
And therefore on St. Clement's day 

We go a-Clementing." 

Deacon Folger's horse, who alone heard the 



PERILOUS VOYAGING. 351 

quotation, took it into solemn consideration ; the 
rest of the party appeared, and presently a carry- 
all, packed entirely solid with merry humanity 
and manifold wraps, rolled down Orange Street 
and out upon the sandy road branching off to 
the left from the Sconset road. A real piece of 
woods lies along the first mile of this road, and 
the sea is never out of sight; so that there is 
always something to enjoy, in addition to the 
delight of rapid motion and pleasant compan- 
ionship. And although two or three detached 
farms with much shut-up farm-houses, one 
school building, and a blacksmith's shop com- 
prise all that was seen of Quaise or Podpis, it 
was a very delightful journey. Quidnit is a tiny 
hamlet at one end of Sachacha Pond, and Sacha- 
cha Pond is a sheet of fresh water only divided 
from the sea by a strip of sand. But fresh-water 
fish are here to be caught; and it used to be the 
fashion for Nantucket merry-makers to come 
out to Sachacha for picnics or squantums, or to 
dance in a house built for the purpose, in the 
days when Nantucket had both more young 
men and more money than now, and cherished 
a livelier style of society. The house is gone, 
the "hermit" who was a feature of Quidnit is 



352 NANTUCKET SCRAPS, 

dead, the perch are very bony, and the whole 
place has a lonesome and *' gone-by " look to it, 
— at least it had on that St. Clement's day ; 
and Mysie was glad to get away and arrive at 
Sankaty, where the party unpacked themselves, 
sat for a while by the light-house keeper's fire 
with his pretty wife and baby, and then did the 
correct thing in mounting all the iron stairs, in- 
specting the Fresnel light, stepping out on the 
balcony, looking at the view, and pointing out 
to each other the familiar features of the land- 
scape. Light-houses, however, have a good 
many features in common, among others a pro- 
nounced smell of oil and a certain oleaginous 
smoothness to the iron stairs and hand-rails ; and 
on the whole Mysie feels that the forty or fifty 
light-houses she has gravely inspected have per- 
haps filled the measure of good she is able to 
derive from this source. 

On again to Sconset, and a brief visit all round 
to her friends there, principally to the house of 
her late host ; finally a last drive in the chilly 
gloaming across the moors, where the white 
owls were hooting ominously, and so home to 
a merry tea-table and a welcome bed. 

A day or two later Mysie had a tempestuous 



PERILOUS VOYAGING. 353 

passage across the Sound, and so home to quiet 
comfort, enhvened by the many happy memories 
very imperfectly crystalhzed in these pages. 

There is a great deal more to say about Nan- 
tucket, and Mysie quite intended saying it, — a 
good deal about the places, and a good deal 
about the people, several of whom are well 
known to the world in widely differing depart- 
ments of art, science, literature, philanthropy, 
politics, and heroism. But after all there seems 
a certain indelicacy in setting down the names 
of living persons even in a role d'honneur with- 
out their consent, and the curious reader is re- 
ferred to Mr. Godfrey's excellent ''Nantucket 
Guide," where, under the head of ''Distin- 
guished Nantucketers," he will find many names 
with which he is already familiar, and some of 
which the whole world honors. 

One exception may be made to this rule, how- 
ever. The William Rotch there mentioned was 
father of Mrs. Farrar, wife of Professor Farrar 
of Harvard University; and some of us will 
remember her "Young Ladies' Book," which 
was the Vade Meatm of our girlhood, and the 
fascinating work of her later years called " Rec- 

23 



354 NANTUCKET SCRAPS. 

ollections of Seventy Years," where she speaks 
of her father and his connection with Nantucket 
and Dunkirk. 

But the subject, Hke most worthy subjects, 
broadens in the study, and one may as well 
pause here as try to finish an endless theme. 
The social life of Nantucket, the peculiar phase 
of female character and influence here exhib- 
ited, the habits of mind and judgment coloring 
its opinions of the rest of the world, the edu- 
cational progress, and, above all,. the anomalous 
and transitional religious phase succeeding the 
expiring Quaker faith, — all these and other 
themes might fill many pages more, and per- 
haps present a deeper interest than these idle 
sketches of personal adventure ; but space, time, 
and strength fail. What is written is written ; 
and Mysie, in dropping the pen, can only advise 
those who would fain know more of a most in- 
teresting place and people to go and study for 
themselves. Vale. 



University Press, Cambridge : John Wilson & Son. 



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